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600002368P
(fo4.
ON THE
ORIGIN OF UNIVERSITIES.
LONDON :
PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENT LEY,
Dor8et*stre<!t, FIeet-8tre«t.
ORIGIN OF UNIVERSITIES
ACADEMICAL DEGREES.
HENRY MALDEN, MA.
LONDON: X^'/.
PRINTED FOR JOHN TAYLOK,
UPPER OOWER 8THEET.
1835.
bolt-
PREFACE.
Last year the Petitions for and against the grant
of a Charter to the University of London were re-
ferred to a Committee of the Privy Council, and
counsel heard in support of them. An inten-
tion was entertained of publishing the whole ar-
gument ; and I was requested to write a Prelimi-
nary Dissertation on the antiquities of the subject,
that is, on the Origin of Universities and Acade-
mical Degrees. This I did accordingly; but the
intention of publishing the argument was dropped ;
and my manuscript remained in my hands.
I knew very well that my dissertation was very
imperfect. It had been written hastily. Many
books which I should have been glad to consult,
and those not rare ones, it so happened that I had
not been able to procure. Others, such, for ex
VI PREFACE.
ample, as Wood's History and Antiquities of the
University of Oxford, I had consulted at the Bri-
tish Museum ; but my essay was written, partly
when I was confined to a sick room, partly when I
was a convalescent in the country ; so that I was
obliged to be content with a few references, A
complete History of Universities would necessarily
be a work of some magnitude. My essay was
short, and contained nothing more than a slight
sketch of the early History and Constitution of
the two most ancient and celebrated Universities
on the Continent, Paris and Bologna, and a similar
sketch of those of our own country; and this
sketch, slight as it was, was defective in many
parts.
For these reasons, when my dissertation was
not used for the purpose for which it was written,
I did not think of presenting it to the public as a
separate work ; and I could not spare time to make
it complete. But afler a while, when I called to
mind, that not only the question of the charter of
the University of London had been brought before
Parliament, but the much more important question
PREFACE. Vll
of the admission of dissenters to Oxford and Cam-
bridge, and that the discussion was sure to be
renewed ; and when I considered the very great
ignorance of the nature and primitive constitution
of the universities, which had been shown on all
sides, in and out of parliament, by those who had
spoken and those who had written on the subject ;
it appeared to me, that even this short essay,
which, imperfect as it is, I believe to be correct
as far as it goes, might give some useful informa-
tion, and might prevent some mischievous mis-
takes. In this hope of doing good I made up my
mind to publish it.
There are one or two passages, in which, from
the facts stated, an argument is drawn in favour
of the pretensions of the University of London.
These would have been consistent enough, if the
dissertation had been published, as I intended it to
be, as an Introduction to the Report of the argu-
ment before the Privy Council. I am aware that
in a separate work they are out of place : but I
have suffered them to stand as they were originally
written.
VIU PREFACE.
When I wrote these pages, I was not aware of
the existence of Meiners* History of the Univer-
sities of Europe, (Geschichte der Enstehung und
Entwickelung der Hohen Schulen unsers Erd-
theils; Gottingen, 1805 ;) a work which would have
saved me almost all my labour of research. Some
references to it have been introduced in correcting
the press.
May 27, 1835.
NOTICE.
The chief authorities which have been consulted
in the following dissertation are these : —
1. CoNRiNGii De Antiquitatibus Academicis
Dissertationes Septem cum Supplementis. Con-
ringius was a professor in the University of Hel-
mestad, founded by Julius Duke of Brunswick and
Lunenburg in 1576. His dissertations were ori-
ginally delivered in the form of orations, on occa-
sions of academical solemnity. The second edi-
tion, which he published with the supplements,
bears the date 1674. We have used the edition
printed at Goettingen in 1739.
2. lo. Christ. Itteri Moeno-Frarwofurtensis De
Houoribus sive Gradibus Academicis Liber. The
first edition of this work was a small duodecimo ;
the second a quarto. The latter bears the date
1698. In almost all matters of antiquity Itter
relies upon the authority of Conringius. In the
Appendix to the second edition is Erici Mauritii
De Honorum Academicorum Origine Oratio, which
contains a clear summary of the results of the
investigations of Conringius.
X NOTICE.
3. Heumanni Bibliotheca Historica Academica,
appended to the Goettingen edition of Conringius.
In this work is a short summary of the contents of
Du Boullay's History of the University of Paris.*
4. Geschichte des Romischen Rechts im mittel
alter, etc. History of the Roman Law in the Mid-
dle Ages, by Frederic Charles von Savigny, The
third volume of this work contains an account of
the Ancient Universities of Europe, especially of
Bologna. I have not been able to use the ori-
ginal work; but I have relied upon a series of
abstracts of the successive volumes published in
the Antologia^ by the advocate P. Capei, and after-
wards collected into a separate volume. These
abstracts are sufficiently full, since they make a
work of 200 closely printed pages.
5. Edinburgh Review, No. cvi. art. vi. " On
the Universities of England — Oxford."
6. Dyer's Privileges of the University of Cam-
bridge.
7. Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry
into the State of the Universities of Scotland.
1831.
* Meiners' copious citations have enabled me to extend the
number of my references to Du BouUay.
CONTENTS.
Page
Introduction 1
Twelfth Century the period of the Origin of Uni-
versities 2
University of Paris 3
Tradition of its foundation by Charlemagne • . ib.
Connected with a school attached to the church of
Ste. Genevieve 5
The Trivium and Quadrivium .... 6
Theol(^cal School 7
Division of the University into Four Nations . 8
Licences to teach granted by the Chancellor of Ste.
Genevieve 9
Meaning of the term Untv^r^/y . . . .11
Origin of Theol(^cal Degrees .... 15
of Degrees in Arts 19
Reason why the confirmation of the Popes was sought when
new Universities were founded . . . 21
Origin of the term Bachelor 22
Formation of the Faculties of Theology, Law, and Me-
dicine in the University of Paris ... 24
Government of the University 25
Study of the Civil Law forbidden .... 26
Privileges of the University 27
xii CONTENTS.
Page
Adjudged by the Parliament of Paris to be a secular
Corporation 31
Schools ib.
Origin of Hospitiay or Hostels, and its causes . . 32
Colleges 33
Salaries of Professors 36
University of Bologna 37
Imerius 38
He begins to expound the Civil Law .... 39
Code of Justinian little known in the Western Empire 41
Titles of the teachers of Law at Bologua ... 44
^e Decretum and Canon Law 45
School of Arts at Bologna 46
of Medicine 47
— !> — of Theology 48
Privil^^ conferred by Emperor Frederic I. . , ib.
Constitution and Government of the University 52
Institution of Degrees 54
Collies of the Faculties 55
Admission to Degrees 57
Salaried Professors 60
Jurisdiction of the Rector 62
Female Graduates and Professors .... 63
University of Salerno 64
Medical Ordinance of Frederic II 66
University of Naples 70
University of Oxford : tradition of its foundation
by Alfred ib.
Earliest teachers of Theology and Civil Law . . 7*2
Royal Charters 75
Act of Incorporation, 13 EUz. a. d. 1570 • . ib.
Resistance of the civil power to the authority of the
Popes in the English Universities ... 77
Early History of Oxford 78
• • •
CONTENTS. XUl
Page
Colleges 80
Halls 81
Difficulty of establishing new Halls ... 84
Chamberdekyns • . 85
Admission of Dissenters to the Universities . . 86
University of Cambridge : its origin. ... 91
Early documents respecting it .... 93
Royal Charters 97
Papal Bulls 98
Distinction between studium and universitas . . 100
Office of Chancellor in Universities . . . t6.
Gradual exemption of Cambridge from ecclesiastical
jurisdiction 102
Hospitia, Halls, and Colleges . . . 105 & 1 06
English Universities not divided into nations . .108
Influence of collegiate foundations on the teaching and
government of the English Universities . 109
Original signification of Degrees • . , ib.
Regents 112
Non-Regents 113
Lectures of Masters and Doctors supplanted by lec-
tures of public Professors . . . . 115
Government of Continental Universities devolved
upon Professors 118
Institution of Professorships at Oxford . . . 119
— — — — ^— Cambridge . .120
Professors formerly the organs of the Instruction of
the Universities 123
Change of system at Oxford . . . • 125
— ^— Cambridge . . 126
Examinations at Cambridge . . . . 132
Collie Tuition 134
Private Tuition 136
XIV CONTENTS.
Page
Effect of collegiate lotmdations on the government of
the Universities 138
Univeesity op London . . . . . 143
Universities of Scotland 144
St. Andrew's 147
Glasgow 153
Distinction between the University and the College 159
Aberdeen : King's College 166
Marischal College 1 67
Edinburgh iO.
Advantages of the constitution of the University of
Edinburgh . . . . . 171
Constitution of the University of London . . 172
ON THE
ORIGIN OF UNIVERSITIES,
&C.
A PETITION to the Crown, praying that a new
University may be legally recognised and sanc-
tioned by royal authority, and that it may be en-
dowed with the ordinary privileges of universities,
is a novel event in this country. The support
which the petition of the University of London
has received from the address of the House of
Commons, has attracted attention to the subject
in an especial degree. The Universities of Oxford
and Cambridge are of such high antiquity, that we
are accustomed to look upon them as having an im-
memorial existence; and few but professed anti-
quaries know anything of their early history. But
the proposition to establish a new university natu-
rally excites a curiosity to know the origin of uni-
versities in general ; in what manner, and by what
authority, the existing universities of our own coun-
try, and of the other kingdoms of Europe, have been
B
2 ON THE ORIGIN OF
constituted ; and how they have been invested with
those privileges which they now enjoy.
The oldest universities of Europe sprung up in
the twelfth century, and were formed by the zeal
and enterprise of learned men, who undertook to
deliver public instruction to all who were desirous of
hearing them. The first teachers soon found assist-
ants and rivals : students resorted in great numbers
to the sources of knowledge thus opened to them :
and from this voluntary concourse of teachers and
learners the schools arose, which were afterwards
recognised as public bodies, and entitled Universi-
ties, and which served as models for those which
in later times were founded and established by
public authority. Some of the oldest universities
had traditions of their foundation at a more re-
mote period by royal or imperial authority, and
these traditions might be nominally true : but
as far as their real life, and power, and distinc-
tive character are concerned, their origin was in
fact spontaneous, and is to be ascribed to the ge-
neral excitement of the intellect which pervaded
Europe in the twelfth century. In that century the
study of law and of theology was revived ; medicine
assumed the form of a science ; the learning of the
Arabians began to be transfused into Europe;
schools were opened ; the modern languages, which
arose from the intermixture of the Latin with the
Northern tongues, began to be cultivated and re-
UNIVERSITIES. 3
duced to form ; and poets sprung up abundantly,
especially in the south and north of France, the
Langue d'Oc, and the Langue d'Oil. This general
revival of intellectual activity is probably to be
attributed to the violent excitement of the first
crusade.
The University of Paris was one of the oldest
universities in Europe; and indeed it has a fair
claim to be considered as the oldest. For some
centuries it was the most famous and the most
frequented of all seats of learning, and exercised
the greatest influence upon the public mind of
Christendom. The greater number of universities
throughout Europe assumed its form and adopted
its customs ; and this was especially the case with
the universities of our own country. With this
ancient school, therefore, we shall begin our
researches.
It was the old tradition of the University of Paris,
that it was founded by Charlemagne ; and conse-
quently its origin was referred to the year 800, or
thereabout. This tradition has been rejected by all
recent writers who have examined the matter, and
treated as an idle tale. It rests upon no distinct
evidence ; and even those antiquaries who maintain
it, are constrained to confess, that for nearly three
centuries after the death of Charlemagne the uni-
versity had fallen into a state of almost utter decay,
and that scarcely a shadow or vestige of letters
4 ON THE ORIGIN OP
was to be found in Paris.^ Mr. Hallam states, on
the authority of Cr6vier, that *' the first who is said
to have read lectures at Paris was Remigius of
Auxerre, about the year 900 :"f and he adds, " For
the two next centuries the history of this school is
very obscure ; and it would be hard to prove an
unbroken continuity, or at least a dependence and
connexion of its professors."
It is possible, however, that the ancient tradition
was not altogether without foundation. Charle-
magne not only was a patron of learned men, and
encouraged them to resort to his court, but he ex-
erted himself strenuously to diffuse some portion of
education among his subjects generally, and parti-
cularly among the clergy and those designed for the
sacred profession. For this purpose he enacted that
schools should be established in all episcopal and
collegiate churches, and that they should be open
to all students. This rule he vigorously enforced,
and it was occasionally revived by his successors ;
although through the ravages of the Normans, the
general dislocation of society, and the sloth and
ignorance of the monks and canons of the tenth
century, this wholesome institution fell gradually
«
* Du BouUay, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, torn. i.
pp. 178, 288.
f Europe during the Middle Ages, chap. ix. part ii. He
refers to Cr6vier*s Uistoire de PUniv.de Paris, t. i. p. 66.
UNIVERSITIES. 5
into disuse .* Now it was universally allowed, that
the most ancient part of the University of Paris
was the faculty of arts or philosophy. This faculty
originally constituted the whole university ; and the
faculties of theology, law, and medicine, were not
added till a later period. In consequence of this
superior antiquity, the rector of the university was
always chosen from the artistce, or graduates in arts ;
and a doctor of the higher faculties was ineligible.
Moreover, this ancient faculty had a special con-
nexion with the church of Ste. Genevieve. The
chancellor of the church of Ste. Genevieve was
always the chancellor of the faculty of arts ; al-
though the bishop of Paris was the chancellor of
the other three faculties, and was considered as the
chancellor of the university at large.f It is pos-
sible that the faculty of arts may have grown out of
a school attached to the church of Ste. Genevieve,
according to the ordinance of Charlemagne; but
this bare possibility is all the proof that can be
shown on behalf of the foundation of the university
by the great Emperor of the West.
* Conringius de Antiquit. Academ. Dissert, i. s. 43, and
Dissert, iii. s. 5. with the Supplements.
if Conringius, Diss. i. s. 43. The superior antiquity of the
faculty of arts is beyond all question. It is asserted by Du
Boullay and all other writers, and expressly admitted by File-
sac in his History of the Statutes of the Faculty of Theology in
the University of Paris.
b ON THE ORIGIN OF
The learning which was communicated in this
ancient school, as in all others of the same age, was
comprised in two courses, called the Trivium, and
the Quadrivium. The first included grammar, logic,
and rhetoric; the second, arithmetic, geometry,
astronomy, and music. These were the seven
liberal arts. In fact, the objects of study were then,
as they are now at Oxford and Cambridge, philology
and mathematical science. Oxford has shown a
disinclination to rise above the Trivium : Cambridge,
while it does not neglect the Trivium, has manifested
a peculiar predilection for the nobler Quadrivium ;
although it is to be feared that music has fallen
from its honourable station among the seven arts.
It may be easily imagined, that in the tenth and
eleventh centuries the extent of learning which
was comprehended under these seven heads was
not very large : but little as it was, not many scho-
lars proceeded beyond the Trivium ; and the student
who had mastered both courses was looked upon as
a person of profound erudition. For example, a
barbarous verse has been preserved in commenda-
tion of the learning of Alan of the Isles, who ap-
pears to have been one of the most famous scholars
of his time, and who taught in the school of Paris :
'< Qui tria, qui septem, omne qui scibile novit."*
But the event which gave a new life to the Uni-
* Conringius, Suppl. xlvi.
UNIVERSITIES. 7
versity of Paris, and from which in fact its existence
as a university must be dated, was that from the
beginning of the twelfth century Paris became the
resort of learned men, who attached themselves in
some sort to the existing school of arts, but, leaving
to inferior teachers this preliminary learning, deli-
vered public lectures in theology. Filesac enu-
merates the most celebrated of these theologians
who flourished during the reign of Louis VII. the
father of Philip Augustus:— Anselm of Latrdun, the
preceptor of Peter Abelard ; William of Champeaux,
who previously, according to Mr. Hallam, at the
very beginning of the century, had taught logic and
philosophy, and must consequently have lectured in
the school of arts ; Peter Abelard himself, whose
genius and eloquence, and boldness in speculation,
allured a multitude of enthusiastic disciples ; and
Peter Lombard, the pupil of Abelard, whose Book
of Sentences became a text-book in scholastic theo-
^ogYi and supplanted even the Scriptures them-
selves.*
These distinguished teachers collected around
them a crowd of hearers ; and the success of the
* Filesac in Gonringius, Dissert, iii. s. 17. See also Europe
daring the Middle Ages, chap. ix. part ii. In Conringius,
Suppl. zlvi. a fuller list of the masters of the theological
school is given from Henry, a monk of Ghent, the con-
tinoator of a work ^' De Scriptoribus Ecdesiasticis," who
seems to have been Filesac's authority.
\
10 ON THE ORIGIN OF
ters, should be permitted to direct schools without
any molestation or exaction."*
Savigny, however, who mentions this constitu-
tion, mentions a letter of the same pontiff, and
very nearly of the same date, which has escaped
the vigilance of Conringius, by which Peter Comes-
tor, who was then chancellor of the school of Paris,
was specially excepted and relieved from the pro-
hibition against taking fees for licences to teach.
This is the earliest public document extant which
has reference to the University of Paris. It ap-
piears, as might be expected, that the exception
had greater force than the general rule ; for in
the year 1215, when Innocent III. by his legate,
Robert de Cour^on, regulated the institutions of
the university, he found it necessary to renew
the ordinance that nothing should be given to
the chancellor for granting licences.f
These regulations of Innocent III. implied the
recognition and sanction of the university by the
papal see ; a sanction which was especially valu-
* " Quicunque viri idonei et literati voluerint regere studia
literamm, sine molestia et exactione qualibet scholas regere
permittantiir.'' Decretal. Lib. y. tit. 5, in Conringius, Diss,
iv. s. 24.
f Itter, De Grad. Academ. cap. iv. s. 22. Mr. Hallam,
who has mentioned this first statute for regulating the disci-
pline of the university in a note, Ed. 4, vol. iii. p. 524, has
by mistake named Honorius III . the successor of Innocent,
as the pope by whom it was given.
UNIVERSITIES. 1 1
able, and indeed necessary to its continued exist-
ence, when theology had become its leading study
and its distinguishing characteristic. In this or-
dinance, the term University was applied for the
first time to the Parisian school.*
There are few words, the origin of which has
been so utterly forgotten, or their meaning so
grossly mistaken, as the term University. By
many persons, who have taken their notion of the
word merely from the English universities, it is
commonly supposed that a university necessarily
means a collection and union of colleges ; that it
is a great corporation embodying in one the smaller
and subordinate collegiate corporations. This mis-
conception seems to have been entertained even
by the author of " A Reply to the Calumnies of
the Edinburgh Review ;" a pamphlet commonly
ascribed to Dr. Copleston, late Provost of Oriel
College, Oxford, and now Bishop of LlandafF. He
asserts without any misgiving, that " The Univer-
sity of Oxford is not a national foundation. It is a
congeries of foundations, originating, some in royal
munificence, but more in private piety and bounty.
They are moulded indeed into one corporation; but
each one of our twenty colleges is a corporation by
♦ Savigny. There is, however, a letter of Innocent, of the
year 1209, in which the term is used : " Doctoribus et uni-
versis scholaribus Parisiensibus universitatem ves-
tram rogamus, £cc." Du Boullay, iii. p. 52.
12 ON THE ORIGIN OF
itself." How false this notion is, will appear more
clearly when we come to speak of the origin of col-
leges : but no one can entertain it, who is once re-
minded how many universities exist in which there
are no colleges. In the German universities at the
present day there are in general no colleges, nor
any foundations bearing an analogy to them. Even
if we look to the Scotch universities, we shall find
that Edinburgh, although it is called a college, is
merely a university, and has nothing in common
with the English meaning of the term college ; and
at Glasgow, Aberdeen, and St. Andrew's, the col-
leges are corporations endowed for the benefit of
the principals- and professors, and not of the stu-
dents; and scarcely a single student resides in
College chambers.* It need not be explained how
difierent these institutions are from the colleges of
the English universities. At Oxford and Cam-
bridge, the universities existed before a single
college was endowed ; and the universities would
continue to exist, with all their rights and privi-
leges unimpaired, even if the property of all the
colleges were confiscated, and their buildings level-
led with the ground. If they exercised their pro-
per functions, and performed their proper duties,
they might continue to be the instruments of na-
tional education.
* Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Universities
of Scotland, p. 283.
UNIVERSITIES. 13
It may seem superfluous to have dwelt thus long
upon this misconception of the meaning of the
name University ; but it is bad policy to be above
contradicting a vulgar error. There is another
error, which has an appearance of greater learning,
and into which even such learned men as Mosheim,
Tiraboschi, and Mr. Waddington have fallen '* that
universities are so called because they profess to
teach universal learning. This is a mere quibble
upon the word. In the language of the civil law
all corporations ^^ were called universitcUeSf as form-
ing one whole out of many individuals.*'t In the
German jurisconsults universitas is the word for a
corporate town.j: In Italy it was applied to the
incorporated trades in the cities. In ecclesiastical
language, the term was sometimes applied to a
number of churches united under the superintend-
ence of one archdeacon. In a papal rescript of
the year 688, it is used of the body of canons of
the church of Pisa.§ By applying the term, there-
* See Thoughts on the Advancement of Academical Educa-
tion in England, by James Yates, M.A. p. 165 ; and History
of the Church, by the Rev. George Waddington, p. 469.
-)- Blackstone's Commentaries, voL i. chap. 18.
X See Ducange in v. In one example cited by him, it
seems to be used by a king of France to denote his whole
realm.
§ Dyer's Privileges of the University of Cambridge, vol. i.
p. 384.
16 ON THE ORIGIN OF
blish the rule, that no one should be allowed to
teach without their approbation and permission.
This of course led to an examination of the can-
didates, and to a public trial of their ability, and to
a formal ceremony for their admission to the dig-
nity of teachers or doctors^
Of the date of this innovation we are not exactly
informed. All that Filesac ventures to assert is,
that the constitution of the theological faculty was
complete before the end of the thirteenth century ;
which is undoubtedly true. But the necessity of
a formal admission to the privilege of teaching was
firmly established long before that time ; and, as
we have said before, he carries down too late what
may be called the voluntary condition of the fa-
culty. On the other hand, Antony a Wood, who
asserts that the title of doctor in theology had its
origin at Paris about the year 1151, and thence
shortly afterwards was adopted at Bologna and
at Oxford, appears to have placed the origin of
the dignity too early, if he conceived that it
was a title conferred by authority and with cere-
mony. No doubt, in the middle of the twelfth
century, the actual doctors or teachers, whether
at Paris, Bologna, or Oxford, were called doctors
or teachers ; but the appellation had nothing tech-
* Conringius, Dissert, iii. s. 17. See also Erid Mauritii
Orat. de Honor. Academ. Orig. p. 36.
UNIVERSITIES. 17
nical in it* Yet Wood's position is confirmed
by an old writer cited by Du Boullay,t who
says that the degrees of bachelor and doctor
took their rise among the students of Peter Lom-
bard's Book of Sentences, which was published
about 1151. One of the earliest examples, if it
be not the very earliest, of which there is docu-
mentary evidence, in which the title of doctor
appears to have been an honourable distinction
and not merely a descriptive appellation, occurs in
a remarkable person, Stephen Langton, archbishop
of Canterbury, whose nomination to the vacant see
occasioned the great struggle between King John
and Pope Innocent III. Innocent, in letters of the
date 1207, declares, that ^^ it was not to be im-
puted as a fault to Langton, but rather to be re-
membered to his honour, that he had spent a long
time at Paris in liberal studies, and made so great
proficiency, that he earned the dignity of doctor,
not only in the liberal faculties, but also in theolo-
gical studies/'^: Innocent himself, according to
his own testimony, was a master of theology in the
University of Paris ; but this probably means only
* Hist, et Antiq. Univ. Oxon. lib. i. p. 24.
t T. ii. p. 682.
I **- Ut meruerit esse doctor." — Itter, De Orad. Academ.
cap. iv. 8. 24 ; on the authority of Spelman's Glossary, voc
Magistery where reference is made to Matth. Paris, Hist.
Angl. pag. m. 224.
C
18 ON THE ORIGIN OF
that he taught in the schools.* However this may
be, Rigord, the contemporary chronicler of Philip
Augustus, asserts, that in the year 1209 the Uni-
v-ersity of Paris was in the most flourishing con-
dition, and that distinct degrees in the four greater
faculties were in use.f Innocentius Gentilletus,
the author of an Examination of the Council of
Trent, asserts in the very beginning of his book,
that the degrees of doctor and bachelor in theology
were not known till the year 1215, and that then
they were devised by the authority of the Lateran
Council (i. e. the fourth) ; and that in the second
year of Honorius III. the succeeding pontiff, the
doctors and licentiates of law, who were then
in the highest repute, (he means the school of law
at Bologna,) furnished a pattern for the arrange-
ment of all other academical degrees. j: The ele-
venth chapter of the Constitutions of the Fourth
* Itter, ibid, and Conringius, Diss. iv. s. 24, from Onu-
phrius, Chron. Ecdes. Du Boullay, t. ii. p. 682.
t Itter, ibid. It seems necessary to receive this testimony
with some caution. Itter does not quote the words of Rigord
himself, but trusts to the representation of Naudaeus, in his
Orat. de Antiquit. Scholae Medicse Paris. If Rigord says
nothing more than the sentences which are quoted in his own
words by Conringius, Dissert, iii. s. 18, and Suppl. xlix.
though he bears ample testimony to the existence of all the
faculties, to the study of the trivium and quadrivium, of the
dvil and canon law, of medicine and of theology, he makes
no mention of degrees.
t Ant. a Wood, Hist, et Antiq. Univ. Oxon. lib. i. p. 24.
UNIVERSITIES. 19
Lateran Council relates to teachers of theology ;
but how far it bears out the above assertion, we have
no means of ascertaining. It is manifest, however,
that the appellation of doctor was known before this
time, whatever might be the case with that of ba-
chelor in theology. It seems that these academi-
cal distinctions were regulated at that time, and
that these regulations were part of the reform
which Innocent lU. by his legate introduced into
the University of Paris in the same year, 1215, as
we have related above.*
We have now conducted the theological faculty
to the stage in which candidates were examined
and approved by the existing teachers, before they
were allowed to assume the title of doctor or mas-
ter, and to deliver public lectures. As yet we have
found nothing similar in the faculty of arts ; unless
indeed it be supposed that the expressions of Pope
Innocent about Stephen Langton prove as much
with respect to one faculty as the other. But
regulations on this head likewise made part of
Innocent's reform; and it was provided that no
one should read, that is, lecture in arts, who had
not been an auditor six years, and passed a formal
examination. A more curious provision is that the
♦ Cr^vier, tom.i. p. 296; Du Boullay, t. iii. pp. 81, 82.
The Constitutions of Innocent are noticed by Mosheim, cent,
xiii. p. ii. chap. i. ; and Dupin, Nouv. Biblioth. siec. iii.
oh. X.
20
ON THE ORIGIN OF
aspirant must be more than twelve years of age.*
There is a most important bull of Gregory IX, of
the year 1231, in which, after regulating the ad-
mission of masters of theology and the canon law,
he ordains that, " with regard to the students of
medicine and the artistce, the chancellor shall pro-
mise to examine the masters in good faith, and
admitting only the worthy, he shall keep out the
unworthy. "f At this time the university was in a
disturbed state. There had been disputes between
the bishop of Paris and the chancellor of St. Ge-
nevieve. In the year 1229, in consequence of a
quarrel with' the citizens of Paris, in which the
students of the university conceived themselves
to be aggrieved, great numbers of them deserted
the university, and many were allured to Oxford
by the offers of Henry III. The university re-
mained in a feeble condition for two or three years,
when Louis IX. exerted himself for its restoration,
especially by the renewal and confirmation of all
the privileges conceded to it by former kings ; and
it is probable that this bull of Pope Gregory was
designed to assist his efforts.:|:
From this time forth there can be no doubt that
* Du Boullay, t. iii. pp. 81, 82.
t ^' De physicis autem et artistis cancellarius promittet,
bona fide examinare magistros, et non nisi dignos admittens
repellet indignos." — Conringius, Diss. iii. s. 18 5 Du BouUay,
t. iii. pp. 140, 141.
I Conringius, Diss. v. s. 10.
UNIVERSITIES.
21
degrees were regularly conferred in all the facul-
ties after a solemn examination ; and altliough Fi-
leaac could name only two doctors in theology
created in the thirteenth century, it is manifest
that this is to be ascribed to the want of registers,
and not to the rarity of the degree.* Nicholas IV.
who was pope from 1287 to 1294, granted to the
University of Paris a most valiiable and honourable
privilege, that doctors who were there approved
should everywhere have the power of teaching,
lecturing, and directing public schools, (^docendi,
kgendi, regendi,) and should be accounted doctors
everywhere. It may be worth while to mention,
that it was this privilege of catholic degrees, if we
may use the expression, which in somewhat later
tines caused the confirmation of the popes to be
sought whenever a new university was founded.
It was not questioned that any sovereign might
erect a university in his own dominions ; or if any
difficulty were raised, it was only with regard to a
theological faculty ; but it was the pope alone who
could make degrees valid beyond the limits of the
university in which they were conferred, and give
them authority throughout Christendom.^ By the
beginning of the fourteenth century, corruptions
• Ibid. Diss. W. B. 25.
t See Report of the Conimission of Enquiry into tlie Univer-
lities of Scotland, p. 213. This ducCrine appears to have heen
eipreuty stated in the bull of Nicholas V. by which iho
Univeraity of Glasgow was established.
22 ON THiB ORIGIN OF
had crept into the ceremony of taking degrees ;
and Pope Clement V. published an edict of the
Cowicil of Vienne against the ostentatious and ex-
travagant expenses of the commencing doctors.*
When we proceed to review the history of the
University of Bologna, we shall see that the title
of doctor of laws was probably as old there as the
title of doctor of theology at Paris ; and that the
appellation had an independent origin at each
place. But it has been argued with great appear-
ance of truth, that the artificial system of academi-
cal degrees, with all its gradations and distinctive
titles, which was finally adopted in every Euro-
pean university, was derived originally from the
University of Paris. Not only does the superior
antiquity of the university afford a presumption
that this was the case ; but the term bacJielary which
was everywhere used as the appellation of the
lowest degree in each faculty, is said in its proper
meaning to be exclusively French, and appears to
have been peculiar to the feudal or military law of
* Conringius, Diss. iv. s. 26. This is the same decree as
that which Savigny says was issued in 1311, and which he
mentions as directed speciaUy to the University of Bologna.
In the original decree cited by Conringius, the expenses are
limited to *' tria millia Turonensium argenteorum." If the
Sol Toumois is meant, these will be equivalent to 387 ounces
of silver ; a very large sum in that age. The sum named by
the Italian abbreviator of Savigny is *' lire 600." This is
less than the sixth part of the former amount.
DNITBESITIES. 23
France." The meaning and etymology of the term
bachelor has occasioned much idle speculation ; but
if it be carefuUyexamined, it appears clearly that the
knight bachelor (chvnalitr bachelierj was the hum-
blest species of knight, and the term was specially
used in contradistinction to a knight banneret. The
knight banneret had the right to unfold his banner;
that is, he not only appeared in arms himself, but
his possessions were so ample, or his fame as a
leader such, that he brought followers into the
field to fight under his banner. The knight
bachelor furnished himself for the field, but he
had no followers, and consequently unrolled no
banner. Such a moderate estate as enabled a
single knight thus to appear in arms was called a
baecalare, and hence the term baccalarius ; but of
the more remote etymology it is diificult or tm-
poseible to affirm any thing. In its academical use
the term was taken metaphorically, and applied to
the humblest species of academical graduate. If
the proper use of the word was peculiarly French, —
and it appears to have been so, — the academical use
of it must have prevailed first in the great Univer-
sity of France, and have been borrowed thence by
other academic bodies ; and if this be granted, it will
be difficult to resist the inference, that the whole
system of academic honours was of Parisian origin.
■ Conringius, Diss. \v. s. 2i ; and Us faUoiverg, Eric Mau-
rice, p. 27 ; snd liter, cap. ip. t. 25.
24 ON THE ORIGIN OP
We shall return to the subject of degrees when
we have examined the origin and early history of
some other universities ; and then we shall endea-
vour to show by what process these licences to
teach (for such they originally were) have passed
into mere honourable distinctions. At present, we
will proceed to explain some further particulars in
the constitution of the University of Paris, and
mention briefly the privileges conferred on it.
We have seen by the bull of Gregory IX. of
the year 1231, that the masters of medicine were
not at that time separate from the artisUe, but
received their licence to teach from the same
chancellor. The faculties were originally all in-
cluded in the nations of the school of arts : but at
some period of the thirteenth century, in conse-
quence of a dispute with the Dominican friars,
who wished in fact to intrude themselves into all
the chairs of the university,* the faculty of arts
consented that the doctors in theology should sepa-
rate themselves, and form a distinct body. This ex-
ample was followed by the teachers of law and me-
dicine ; and thus the three faculties were formed,
which were represented and governed by their deans.
The university was thus divided in an anomalous way
into the four nations of the faculty of arts under
* This spirited contest lasted from 1228 to 1259. See
Waddington's History of the Church, pp. 391, 392 ; Meiners,
1. 1, p. 82, from Bull III. 367.
OSIVEBSITIEB. 25
their procurators, and the tliree superior faculties
under their deaps. But it must be borne in mind,
that the doctors only constituted the higher facul-
ties : the bachelors and Bcholars of theology, law,
and medicine, were included in the four nations.
It has been mentioned already that the rector
could be chosen only from the ancient faculty
of arts. Savigny, from whom we have taken
these details, points out as the great distinction
between Paris and Bologoa, and between the
universities which were formed respectively after
these two great models, that whilst at Bologna the
university was tlie university of the scholars, and
the body of the scholars possessed the supreme
power of the university, at Paris the government
of the university was vested entirely in the doc-
tors and masters, and they alone constituted the
university, so far as it was a public body. A!l
doctors and masters had originally a right to be
present in the general assembly of the university :
but after the middle of the thirteenth century,
when these degrees no longer necessarily implied
that the person holding tliem was actually engaged
in teaching, the lecturers or acting masters only
(^moffistri regentes) ordinarily took a part in the
general assembly ; the other graduates only on
extraordinary occasions and by special invitation.
It appears, however, that eventually all doctors
made good their claim to be considered as regents,
even though they were not actually i
26 ON THE ORIGIN OP
teaching.* The same intrusion was practised at
Oxford; and at Cambridge, in copgregations, the
doctors of more than two years* standing have the
privilege of choosing whether they will vote in
the Regent House, or the Non-regent House.
The study of the civil law had been introduced
at Paris in the twelfth century, apparently not very
long after its revival at Bologna. We know from
Giraldus Cambrensis, that he studied it at Paris
about the year 1180. From another contempo-
rary witness of the same age we have an account
of the method of the lectures on the Pandects.
Rigord in 1209 . describes the study of the civil
law as prosecuted with as much zeal and vigour as
those of any of the other faculties, with the excep-
tion of theology. But in the year 1220, Pope
Honorius III. published a decretal forbidding the
study of the civil law at Paris ; and in that age of
papal supremacy of course the public lectures
were silenced. The faculty of law, however, was
not extinguished, because the study of the ponti-
fical or canon law survived, and was encouraged
by ecclesiastical authority; but it lost its weight
'and importance in the university. Some attempts
were made to revive the study of the Roman law,
especially under the authority of the parliament of
Paris, in 1568 ; and in 1576 the celebrated juris-
consult Cujacius took the degree of doctor of laws
* See the Edinburgh Review, No. cvi. for June 1831,
pp. 388, 389.
imivEESiTiEs. 27
at Paris. But the prohibition was renewed ; and
the university was not finally relieved from it till the
year 1679.* We might adduce more remarkable
instances, in which the study of particular faculties
was forbidden to particular universities ; but this
example is sufficient to show that they were not
necessarily places of universal learning,
We must say a few words of the legal exemp-
tions and peculiar privileges of the university and
its members. Rigord speaks of a certain " liberty
and special prerogative of defence" granted to the
scholars of the university by Philip Augustus and
his father Louis Vli. f There seems no further
mention of any privilege granted by Louis ; but
Philip Augustus, in the year 1200, granted to the
scholars of the university an exemption from the
secular courts. They might be arrested by the
civil power if they committed any misdemeanour ;
but they could be tried aud punished only by the
ecclesiastical courts.J This exemption, as we
shall see hereafter, was in imitation of an edict of
the Emperor Frederic Barbarosso, published in
115S, in favour of the University of Bologna. In
the fifteenth centurj', however, the criminal juris-
diction over all members of the university was
transferred to the parliament of Paris ; apparently
■ SavigDv. The words of the decrelal are given by Con-
ringiuB, Dissert, iii. s. 18.
t Conringius, Suppl. xiii.
I Du BouUay, Hist. VtiW. Paris, torn. iii. p. 4. Savigny.
1
I
30 ON THE ORIGIN OF
ance as a school of theology, it met with no less
fiiYOur from the popes. The members of it were not
to be compelled to appear anywhere oiit of Paris,
on occasion of suits that might arise among them,
even by letters of the apostolic see. But the
most singular privilege conferred by the court of
Rome, was by a letter of Innocent IV. by 'which it
was provided, that no one should promulgate a
sentence of excommunication, suspension, or inter-
dict, against the university or any of its members,
without a special licence from the apostolic see ;
and that, if promulgated, it should be null and
void.* It seems that the whole kingdom of France
might be under an interdict, and the university
exempt from it.
In the account which we have given of the
[MTivileges and exemptions of the university, and
of the changes which they underwent, it will be
perceived that there was a gradual effort after the
first ages to withdraw the university from its ec-
clesiastical connexions, and to bring it back to
subjection to the civil authority. Bodin, in the
passage cited above on the authority of Conringius,
after speaking of the papal privileges of the univer-
sity, adds, '< But our kings and magistrates have
often declared that they are not bound by the
papal laws." Over the university, as a corporate
* Conringius, Diss. v. s. 10.
UNIVERSITIES. 31
body, jurisdiction was exercised in the first in-
stance by the king himself, and afler the middle
of the fifteenth century by the parliament of
Paris.* And at length, in the year 1573, the
parliament solemnly adjudged, that the university
was a secular corporation, and not ecclesiastical tf
a decision which is worth bearing in mind in an
inquiry into the legal condition of universities in
modem times.
The university, as a corporation, was always
very poor, and never possessed any public building;
but was obliged to hold its meetings in the houses
of the religious orders who were willing to give
it this accommodation.^: The teachers originally
delivered their lectures in such rooms as they
could hire, or otherwise obtain the use of; and
very strange accommodation they seem sometimes
to have procured.§ Afterwards, however, the
several faculties had their peculiar halls or schools,
in which their lectures were delivered. || Those
of the faculty of arts and philosophy were in the
Rue de la F<marre (vieus Stramineus ) ^ and appear
♦ Savigny. + Itter, cap. v. s. 6. % Savigny.
$ See in the Edinburgh Review, No. cvi. p. 399, an ex-
tract from the Cardinal de Vitry, who wrote in the first half
of the thirteenth century, and describes the state of Paris,
and of the university in particular. Conringius alludes to
this passage, Suppl. xlvi. but seems to have been too scan-
dalised at it to quote it.
11 Savigny.
32 ON THE ORIGIN OF
to have been very numerous, and to have been
apportioned among the nations of the faculty.*
The great concourse of students in the early
universities made it difficult for them to obtain
lodgings, and the citizens of course demanded for
their lodgings very high prices. To remedy this
inconvenience, recourse was had to somewhat arbi-
trary expedients. Frederic II. when he founded
his university at Naples, fixed a mcucimum price
for lodgings, and enacted besides that all lodgings
should be let according to the joint valuation of two
citizens and two scholars.t The latter regulation
was in force in the English universities. At Bologna,
in like manner, four taxors were appointed to regu-
late the price of lodgings, j: Elsewhere it was pro-
vided, that when a scholar had once hired lodgings,
he should not be disturbed in the possession of them
so long as he paid his rent. But, in spite of all
such arbitrary regulations, it is manifest that the
more celebrated and the more frequented any uni-
versity was, the greater would be the demand for
lodgings, and the higher the price of them. This
pressure upon the poor students excited charitable
• Edinb. Rev. No. cvi. pp. 400, 401.
t Conring. Diss. v. s. 9, gives large extracts from the em-
peror^s letter of foundation, preserved in the Collection of his
chancellor, Petrus de Vineis (Pietro delle Vigne), lib. iii.
epist. 2.
X Savigny.
UNIYEKSITIES. 33^
beDefactors to relieve it in a more effectual manner.
The religious orders first established, in several
university towns, hostels (hospitia) for those of
their members who resorted thither either as teach-
ers or learners. The example was followed by in-
dividuals ; and houses were provided, in which poor
scholars enjoyed the benefit of free lodgings. Free
board was soon added ; and in many cases small
stipends or bursaries to defray the necessary ex-
penses of the scholars. For the sake of discipline,
these foundations were placed under the superin-
tendence of one or more graduates; and these
masters assisted and instructed their pupils; but
only in subservience to tfte public lectures and'
exercises of the university.* Such establishments
were called inns, hostels, halls, or colleges. The lat-
ter name was generally restricted to foundations,
where there was an endowment for the support of
several graduates.
As Paris was the most ancient university, so it
was the university in which collegiate establish-
ments were first founded. According to Mr. Hal-
lam, Crivier enumerates fifteen colleges founded
* This general account of the origin of colleges, as well -as
the greater part of the following account of the colleges of
the University of Paris, is taken from the very able and
learned article in the Edinburgh Review, to which reference
has been already made.
D
34 ON THE ORIGIN OP
in the University of Paris during the thirteenth
century, besides one or two of a still earlier date.
It is doubtful how far the latter part of this account
can be depended upon* Savigny esteems the fa-
mous college of the Sorbonne to have been the
most ancient in Paris ; and this was founded by
Robert de Sorbonne only in the year 1250. Ap-
parently Crevier included in his list such hospitia of
the religious orders as have been mentioned above.
The great college of Navarre, which is said some-
times to have contained seven hundred pupils, was
founded by Johanna Queen of Philip the Fair, in
ld04.f The colleges of Harcourt and Boissy
were of the same century. The Collegium Tri'
linguey for the study of Latin, Greek, and He-
brew, was founded by Francis I. early in the six-
teenth century.j:
The great colleges of Paris stood on a footing
very different from the colleges of the English
Universities. They soon became appropriated to
particular faculties, or to particular departments of
a faculty. Sometimes, but rarely, they included
more than one faculty. Thus the theological fa-
* The College of Good Boys of St. Honor^ was founded for
twelve poor scholars and an overseer in 1208. Meiners, t. i.
p. 109, from Du Boullay, iii. 45, 46.
■j- Meiners, t. i. p. 122.
+ Du Boullay.
UNIVERSITIES. 35
culty was collected at an early period in the college
of the Sorbonne; and all its lectures and public
disputations took place there, with the exception
of two courses delivered in the college of Navarre.
Regent masters were nominated by the faculties as
lecturers in the colleges. These lecturers remained
subject to their several faculties, and were liable to
be controlled or removed by them. Consequently,
attendance on their courses was considered as
equivalent to attendance on the public courses de-
livered in the schools of the university. The col-
leges speedily began to admit within their walls
scholars who were not supported by their founda-
tions; and the college lectures were ultimately
thrown open to the members of other colleges, and
to those scholars of the university who belonged to
no college at all. This took place in the course of
the fifteenth century. The lectures in the public
schools were thus almost entirely superseded, at
least in the faculties of theology and arts ; and the
colleges became the instruments of the public in-
struction of the university. During the latter half
of the fifteenth century, the great colleges of the
faculty of arts, or, as they were called, the colleges
"de plein exercice," amounted to eighteen; al-
though by the middle of the seventeenth century
they had fallen to ten. There were about eighty
smaller colleges, of which more than half still sur-
38 ON THE ORIGIN OP
about the year 1075, began to lecture on law, but
without attracting much notice.*
Imerius had a very different success. He not
only may be said to have created the University of
Bologna, but he was the author of a great revo-
lution in the jurisprudence of Europe. Savigny
calls him a Bolognese. He is more commonly sup-
posed to have been a German. His name indi-
cates at least a German origin.f According to
Conringius, he was engaged in teaching the liberal
arts at Ravenna ; and was invited thence to Bo-
logna for the same purpose, apparently by the au-
thority of the city. J Whilst he was lecturing in
arts in the Bolognese school, copies of some of the
books of the code of Justinian, which were begin-
ning to excite attention, and to be circulated
through Italy, reached Bologna. Imerius applied
himself diligently to the study of them. There is
a story, of better authority than such stories usu-
ally are, inasmuch as it comes from the celebrated
jurisconsult Azzo, that his researches into the
Roman law were first occasioned by a dispute
about the meaning of the word as in the Vulgate.
* Savigny, torn. vi. cap. 26 ; chiefly on the authority of
Odofredus.
*f* Irnerio is the Italian form of it ; but German writers
call him Guamerius, Warnerius, and Wernerius: so that
we may conjecture Werner to have been the true name^
His glosses are signed sometimes G. sometimes Y. ; that is,
Guemerius, or Ymerius. X I^iss* i. s. 45«
UNIVERSITIES. 39
There is another tradition, the authority for which
is the Abbot of Usperga, a chronicler of the age of
Frederic II., that is, about a century after Irnerius,
according to which his labours upon the monuments
of the civil law were in the first instance rather
grammatical and critical than legal. This is highly
probable, from the situation in which he was then
placed. He is said to have been requested by the
Countess Matilda to arrange and restore, and cor-
rect the text of the Institutes, the Pandects, (that
is, of the Digests, as certain portions of them were
called,) the Codex, and the Authentica. The lady
who directed his attention to this important object
was Matilda Countess of Spoleto and Tuscany, the
last of the ancient race of sovereign princes of
Tuscany, who, in the pontificate of Gregory VII.
consented to hold her dominions as a fief of the
Holy See. Irnerius, after thus studying thoroughly
the monuments of the code of Justinian, undertook
to expound it in the public schools. Conringius
distinctly asserts that this novel course of lectures
was undertaken with the sanction of the Republic
of Bologna, and that Irnerius was rewarded for his
labours at the public expense.^ He lectured with
so much zeal and energy, that he collected large
numbers of hearers, and gave an effectual impulse
to the study of the Roman law throughout Italy
* '' Jus Romanum Bononiaa in Italia doceri publico coepit,
sumpHbus et ottra reipublica t//tu«, per Imerium.'* Diss. i.
s. 45.
40 ON THE ORIGIN OF
and Europe. His own reputation he raised to a
great height. The precise date of the commence-
ment of his lectures cannot be ascertained, nor are
the events of the latter part of his life knOwn. His
name is mentioned in the records of public business
and judicial proceedings between the years 1113
and, 1118. From 1116 to 1118 he was in the ser-
vice of the Emperor Henry V. and in this last
year was employed by him at Rome in affairs of
the highest importance. Savigny argues speci-
ously enough, that it is not likely that he would be
employed in State affairs, when he was known only
as a grammarian and a Master of the Trivium and
Quadrivium. His introduction to political life
must have been his reputation as a teacher of law ;
^nd accordingly the origin of the Bolognese school
must be placed at the end of the eleventh century,
or the very beginning of the twelfth. After 1118
Imerius quitted his school to attach himself to the
Imperial Court; and Savigny thinks it doubtful
whether he ever returned to Bologna. He treats as
a fabrication of no authority the account in the chro-
nology of Otto Muraena, that the famous " Four
Doctors" of the age of Frederic 1. or Barbarossa,
namely Bulgarus, Martin Gosia, Hugo, and Jacopo
della Porta Ravennate, were pupils of Irnerius;
and that when his scholars came to him on his
death-bed, and requested him to name his succes-
sor in the school, he replied by a distich, in which
UNIVERSITIES. 41
he characterized these pre-eminent disciples.*
When, however, we consider the prevalence of the
tradition that the School of Law at Bologna was
founded, and Irnerius appointed to teach hy the
authority of the Emperor Lothaire II. or the Saxon,
in 1125, or soon after; even though the tradition
is demonstrated to be false as to the first origin of
the school, we may think it probable that Irnerius>
after the death of his patron Henry V. and the
accession of Lothaire, returned to his academical
employment at Bologna. He could hardly, it
would seem, have established his school so firmly,
if his labours had been confined to the brief period
before he entered the service of the imperial court.
Sigonius, in his history of Bologna, fixes the time
of his death in the year 1150. Upon what autho-
rity he makes this assertion is not clear ; but if it
be true, ^* the Four Doctors " might have been his
auditors during many years.
The Roman law had never been utterly forgotten
or disused in the provinces of the vast empire which
was formerly subject to it. The countries of the
South of France, many parts of Spain, and a great por-
tion of the inhabitants of Lombardy, professed to be
governed by it. But the only source from which a
knowledge of it was derived was exceedingly scanty.
* Savigny, torn. iv. cap. 27. Conring. Diss. iii. s. 19. In
his Suppl. U. 8. 3. he has given Otto Mursena's story from
the Annals of Baronius, lib. xii. an. 1558.
42 ON THE ORIGIN OP
It was nothing more than the Breviary of Alaric,
which was extracted from the Theodosian code by
the order of the king of the Visigoths about the
year 500 ; and the Theodosian code itself contained
httle beyond the more recent laws promulgated
after the establishment of Christianity. The code of
Justinian, in which the whole mass of Roman ju-
risprudence was reduced to a regular form, was
long posterior to the separation of the Eastern and
Western £mpires,.and was never acknowledged to
have any authority in the provinces of the West.
If it was remembered and recognized at all in Italy,
it was only in the southern part of the peninsula,
which remained longest connected with the Greek
Empire. It was not, however, absolutely unknown to
learned men. Some ecclesiastical writers refer to
it; for example, Hincmar, the archbishop of Rheims
in the ninth century : and they bear testimony to
the respect with which it was regarded by the Ro-
man church.*
At' the close of the eleventh and beginning of
the twelfth centuries, the growing liberty, civiliza-
tion and wealth of the Italian cities made them feel
the want of a more exact and comprehensive and
reasonable system of law, than could be extracted
either from the meagre relics of Roman jurispru-
dence which they still possessed, or from the customs
which the Lombards and other northern races had
• Hallam.
TJNIVERSITIES. 43
brought with them into Italy, and which had been
modified by the introduction of feudal relations.
Accordingly, when the more copious fountains of
legal science were opened by Irnerius, it was felt
that an actual and pressing want of society was
suddenly relieved. The study of law not only at-
tracted the attention of individuals, but became an
object of solicitude to communities ; so that muU
titudes of scholars from every part of Italy resorted
to Bologna. The fame of the new study soon spread
beyond the Alps, and foreigners of every nation,
and especially from Germany, flocked to the uni-
versity ; so that in the time of Azzo (about 1220),
ten thousand students were assembled in its halls.*
In the middle of the fourteenth century the number
was about thirteen thousand, f
One of the most important labours of Irnerius and
his successors was to collect the scattered manu-
scripts of the monuments of the civil law, which
were all more or less imperfect, to piece them to-
gether so as to restore their integrity, and by a
careful collation to correct the numerous corrup-
tions of the text. It was thus as editors that they
were even more useful than in their function as
interpreters and commentators. The earlier school
of Bologna was pre-eminent for its critical diligence
in ascertaining the text. Journeys to Pisa were
* Conring. Diss. iii. s. 19.
-|- Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. t. xvi. p. 325.
44 ON THB ORI6IK OF
frequently undertaken to consult the celebrated
manuscript of the Pandects, which is commonly said
to have been brought to that city from Amalfi in
1185, but which Savigny asserts to have existed
there long before. In later days, when jurisconsults
were less zealous, Bartolus made one such journey,
which he has taken care to commemorate four
times.*
It is uncertain how early the title of Doctor was
given to the teachers of the Bolognese School.
Some writers, as we have seen, suppose that it was
borrowed from the theological school of Paris.
Others reverse the transmission. It is likely enough,
as was said before, that it was given independently
at each place. The earliest teachers were called
lord, master, judge (JDcmmuSy Magistery Judex) ;
and these titles seem to have been in common use
before that of doctor.f It is important to remark
that Dominus was a customary appellation, because
a want of attention to this point has led even Con-
ringius to misinterpret the famous edict issued by
Frederic Barbarossa at Roncaglia, which we shall
mention presently.
Not very long after the revival of the civil law,
another subject of study, of much less intrinsic
* Savigny in the 22nd chapter of his third volume has g^ven
a very complete account of the state of the text of the Pandecta
and other monuments of the Justinian code in the twelfth
century, and of the labour which the school of Bologna be-
stowed upon them.
•f Gonring. Diss. ill. s. 19 ; Suppl. 11. s. 3. Savigny.
UNIVERSITIES. 45
worth, was brought into public notice at Bologna.
In the early ages of the church the public letters of
bishops were known by the name of Decretals
(EpisiokB DecretalesJ. As the see of Rome in-
creased in power, an especial regard was paid to
the decretals of the Bishop of Rome; and in
A.D. 494, a synod held at Rome under Pope Ge-
lasius declared the decretals of the apostolic see to
be of the same authority as the canons of councils.
When the power of the popes became more and
more exorbitant after the time of Charlemagne,
they insisted on the supremacy of their decretals.
Collections of these ecclesiastical statutes were
made, but they were not sanctioned by authority.
At length, in 1151, Gratian, a monk of St. Felix in
Bologna, published his collection, which was called
simply the Decretum, This compilation was im-
mediately received with great favour, and was made
the subject of public lectures in the schools of Bo-
logna ; if we may trust Conringius, even in the pon-
tificate of Eugenius III. who died in 1153;^ and
many scholars were attracted to the study of it.
Thus the foundations of the pontifical or canon law
were laid. The decrees of succeeding pontiffs made
a goodly superstructure. The popes of course re-
garded the study of this new branch of jurispru-
* Conring. Diss. iii. s. 19. He cites the author of the Life
of Gratiaxu If Conringius is right in naming Pope £ugenius,
Panvinius was wrong in referring the publication of Gratian's
Decretum to 1154. See Itter, cap. iv. s. 21. Mr. Hallam
says that it was published about the year 1140.
46 ON THE ORIGIN OF
dence with peculiar favour. The civil law was too
popular in Italy even for papal power to interfere
with. But in other countries they discouraged the
study of the civil law, and sought to substitute for
it the exclusive study of the canon law. This was
the cause of the prohibition of the study of the
civil law in the University of Paris, which we have
already noticed ; a prohibition which Innocent IV.
endeavoured to extend to the whole of France.
England, Scotland, and Hungary.* According to
Savigny, there were doctors of the canon law at
Bologna about the end of the twelfth century.
When degrees came to be regularly conferred, the
degree of doctor was taken either in the civil or
canon law separately, or jointly in both.t
Although the University of Bologna had its
origin, as was observed before, in a school of arts
and philosophy, little or nothing is known of this
part of it during the twelfth century. It appears
to have been obscured by the splendour of the
rising school of law. But about the year 1220, we
find that the Emperor Frederic II. transmitted to
the philosophical school of Bologna certain works
♦ Savigny.
-f* There is a sufficiently full account of the compilation of
Gratlan, and of the origin of the pontifical law, and of the
authoritative addition? which it received from successive
popes, in Mr. Waddington's History of the Church, note A.
to chap. xzi. pp. 467 — 469. Mr. W. names as his chief au-
thority, Giannone, Stor. di Nap. lib. xix. cap. v. s. 1. See
also Mr. Hallam's Middle Ages, ch. vii. (vol. ii. p. 286.)
UNIVERSITIES. 47
of Aristotle and other philosophers, which he had
caused to be translated into Latin from the original
Greek or from Arabic versions. The very interest-
ing letter of the emperor, with which he accompa-
nied his gift, is preserved in the collection of his
chancellor, Pietro delle Vigne ; and the greater part
of it is quoted by Conringius.* This gift gave new
life to the study of philosophy. About this period
translations of Greek philosophical and mathematical
works, made, indeed, not from the originals, but
from Arabic translations, became numerous, and
opened new sources of knowledge to the scholars
of the West
The origin of the Medical School of Bologna is
not marked; but in the thirteenth century there
were several celebrated professors of medicine, who
attracted a large concourse of auditors. They
were in possession of some few books of Hippo-
crates and Galen, and of several translations of the
works of Arabic physicians.t We are probably not
wrong in the conjecture that the medical school of
Bologna was the offspring of Salerno, and that it
was founded in the reign of Frederic II., when his
possession of the kingdom of Naples at the same
time with the empire of Germany and the titular
sovereignty of Lombardy, made the connexion be-
tween the north and south of Italy much more in-
timate than it had been before.
* Pet. De Vineis, lib. iii. ep. 69 ; Gonring. Diss. iii. s. 20.
t Gonring. Diss. iiL s. 21.
48 ON THE ORIGIN OF
Bologna had been one of tlie most celebrated
seats of learning in Europe for nearly two hundred
and fifly years, before theology constituted a re-
gular part of its studies. There were not wanting
occasionally lecturers in theology; for example,
Alexander III., before his elevation to the pope-
dom, had lectured on theology at Bologna : but the
teachers of this science undertook their labours as
a voluntary enterprise, without authority or sanc-
tion. At length, in the year 1362, Pope Innocent
YI. granted to the university, as a mark of special
favour, permission to teach theology, and erected
a faculty of theology on the model of that of
Paris.*
That we may not entirely lose sight of chrono-
logical arrangement in our account of this cele-
brated university, before we proceed to describe
more particularly its internal constitution, we will
notice the singular privileges conferred upon its
scholars by the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, at
the Diet of Roncaglia, in November 1158. This
was a Diet of the Kingdom of Lombardy, held to
settle the disputes between Frederic and the Lom-
bard cities, and to reconcile, if possible, the claims
of the emperor to the sovereignty, and of the cities
to municipal self-government. But amongst graver
political matters, an edict was issued, which, in the
first place, provided for the safe conduct and pro-
* Conring. Diss. iii. s. 21. Savigny.
UNIYBRSITIES. 49
tection of foreign scholars and professors, travelling
or residing in the emperor's dominions for the sake of
study ; and in particular, that no molestation should
be offered to them, nor any exaction practised
upon them, under pretence of any public offence
or debt of the province or city to which they be-
longed ; and which, in the second place, granted to
all scholars, in case any suit was brought against
them, the option of having it determined either by
the master under whom they studied, or by the
bishop of the place.* It is remarkable that no
express mention is made of Bologna in this docu-
ment ; but that it was designed for the benefit of
scholars resorting thither is apparent, because it
was by far the most frequented place of study in
the emperor's dominions, and probably the only one
at that time which was visited by foreign students.
Professors of law are specially mentioned; and
Bologna was^then the only school of law; and the
* Authent. " Habita, &c. :" Tit. Ne filius pro patre (iv.
13). The whole edict is given by Conringius, Suppl. hex.
and he has commented upon it in his Fifth Dissertation,
88. 4-8, and the annexed Supplements. Savigny*8 explana-
tion of it is short and clear. The words in which the import-
ant privilege is granted are these : ^^ Si litem eis quispiam
super aliquo negotio movere voluerit, hujus rei optione data
Scholaribus, eos coram Domino vel Magistro $uo vel ipsius
civitatis Episcopo, quibus banc jurisdictionem dedimus, con-
veniat. Qui vero ad alium judicem eos trahere tentaverit,
etiamsi causa justissima fuerit, a tali conamine cadat>"
£
50 ON THE ORIGIN OF
permission to a scholar to bring his cause before
" his lord or master/' seems to assume that his
lord or master was a legal character. Another
reason for applying the edict peculiarly to Bologna,
is this ; that the four famous doctors already men-
tioned, who were the chief professors of the uni-
versity, were then in close attendance upon the
emperor. Not only were they his assessors in
hearing complaints and determining suits ;* but
they were invited by the emperor to adjudge what
rights ought to be restored to his crown, which
had been usurped by the cities without a special
royal grant : and when they refused to take upon
themselves alone so invidious a task, twenty -eight
judges were named to act with them on behalf of
the cities, the four doctors acting more particularly
on behalf of the emperor.f It can scarcely be
doubted, therefore, that the edict was drawn up by
them, and with a special reference to their own
university, although with far-sighted wisdom they
made the language of it general. We may ob-
serve, by the way, that the employment of the four
doctors in such a business as that we have men-
tioned is a splendid testimony to the reputation and
authority of the university. The privilege granted
to the scholars of choosing their judge seems
* Radevicus, lib. ii. cap. 5. in Conring. Suppl. li. s. 3.
-|- Savigny, torn. iv. c. 28. He cites Otto Munena, an.
1158. Muratori, t. vi. p. 1015 et seq.
UNIVERSITIES. 51
Strange to us; but in that age and country it
would not appear a violation of common usage.
In consequence of the intermixture of different
races in Lombardy, each of which had its own na-
tional laws, it had been the ancient custom for
every one to declare according to what law he
chose to live and be judged, whether the Roman
law, the Lombard, or the Frank or Salic law. We
may easily suppose that the declaration was not
made till the individual had occasion to appear be-
fore some tribunal. Granting therefore to the scho-
lar the option of taking for his judge his master or
the bishop, was in fact giving him his choice of being
tried by the civil or the ecclesiastical law ; a privilege
not very different from the ancient custom of the
country. It appears that the imperial edict was at
first interpreted by the professors as giving them
the right of criminal as well as of civil jurisdiction ;
but as they found themselves unable to exercise
effectively a criminal jurisdiction, they resigned
the right to the city before the end of the twelfth
century, and contented themselves with the power
of determining civil suits.* This edict of Barba-
rossa, which at the same time granted to the
scholars an exemption from the ordinary civic
tribunals, and conferred an important power upon
the professors, was the earliest example of ex-
emption or privilege granted to a university. It
• Savigny, torn. iii.
52 ON THE ORIGIN OF
was made a precedent for other universities, and
may be regarded as the source of all their exclu-
sive jurisdictions.
We have before observed that Savigny lays
down as the great distinction between the univer-
sities of Paris and Bologna, that at Paris the pro-
fessors or lecturers only constituted the univer-
sity, considered as a privileged body, and that the
students were subject to them ; on the contrary,
at Bologna the scholars constituted the university,
and had the power of electing academical officers,
whom the professors were bound to obey. The
scholars of law were divided into two bodies, or
universities^ as they were called — according to the
old meaning of the word — the Citramontanes and
the Ultramontanes, that is, Italians and foreigners.
These were subdivided into nations ; the former
into seventeen, the latter into eighteen. Each
nation had an officer called its counsellor ; except
that the Germans had two procurators instead.
At the head of the two universities of law was the
rector, who was the chief dignitary of the whole
academy of Bologna. The earliest mention of a
rector is at the very end of the twelfth century.
At first only one was elected ; then two, one for
each university; and finally only one. He was
elected annually by the preceding rector, by the
counsellors of the nations, and by electors nomi-
nated from the whole university. He was taken
UNIVERSITIES. 53
from each nation in turn, according to a regular
cycle.
The professors and scholars of arts and medi-
cine endeavoured at an early period to constitute
themselves into a particular university, and to
choose a rector of their own. But the attempt
was resisted by the lawyers, and prohibited by the
city ; and they were compelled to rank them-
selves with the scholars of law. But not many
years after they renewed their efforts; and their
right was formally acknowledged by the city in
1316.
In 1362, Innocent VI. established the Faculty or
University of Theologians, on the model of the
theological faculty of Paris ; that is, it consisted
of the doctors only, and the scholars were con-
sidered as belonging to the artists. The chancel-
lor of the University of Theologians was the bishop
of Bologna. At an earlier period, Honorius III.
who was pope from 1216 to 1227, when he regu-
lated the promotions or collation of degrees in the
school of law, had made the superintendence and
assent of the archdeacon o^ Bologna necessary.
Savigny seems to consider this as a personal
authority, vested in the archdeacon for the time.
However, it was retained by his successors ; and
in time they assumed the title of chancellors, and
exercised a supervision over all the faculties ex-
cept the theologians.
54 ON THE ORIGIN OF
The precise time when degrees were first con-
ferred at Bologna cannot be ascertained. Of
course, by degrees we do not now mean appella-
tions bestowed by common consent or arbitrarily
assumed, such as those of master, judge, or doctor,
borne by the first teachers of the school ; but titles
' of honour, carrying with them certain privileges,
conferred by authority, and after examination.
Savigny conjectures, with great probability, that
it was in consequence of the jurisdiction conferred
by Frederic I. upon the masters or teachers, that
it was considered necessary to prohibit the volun-
tary assumption of that office, and to provide a form
of admission. The actual doctors conferred the
title and dignity of doctor by co-optation ; that is,
they received the candidate into their body by
common consent. By this admission he obtained
the right of lecturing at Bologna, which by a papal
grant, as at Paris, was extended into a right of
lecturing anywhere with the name and authority
of doctor ; the right of jurisdiction over the
scholars; and a vote in the admission of future
doctors. When degrees became so common as to
be merely titles of honour, so that doctors did
not necessarily teach, the right of jurisdiction
ever the scholars was confined to those who
actually lectured (legentes), according to the ob-
vious meaning of Frederic's edict. The right of
voting in promotions was extended to all who had
UNIVERSITIES. 55
at any time taught in the schools.* The first
doctors, of course, were doctors of the civil law.
There were doctors of the canon law, as we have
mentioned, about the end of the twelfth century.
In the thirteenth century we find doctors of gram-
mar, of philosophy, and of medicine : Savigny
mentions even doctors of notariate, if we may coin
a word to express the art or science of a notary.
The title of doctor was by this time considered as
more honourable than that of master, although
originally no distinction was made between them ;
and the appellation of master was retained by those
lecturers who were not yet promoted to the doc-
torate. That there were such lecturers we shall
see presently.
We have explained that there were four univer-
sities: two of the scholars of law, Italian and
foreign ; one of the artists and scholars of medi-
cine united, in which were comprehended also the
scholars of theology; and one of the doctors of
theology. But there were also formed in course
of time five colleges of doctors, which (with
the exception of the Theological College) were
established upon quite a different principle. The
Theological College may have differed only in
* The legentes and non-legentes of Bologna correspond to
the regentes and non-regentes of Paris and Oxford and Cam-
bridge, except that the latter terms were applied equally to
doctors and masters, the former only to doctors.
56 ON THE ORIGIN OF
the number of its members from the University of
Theology ; but there were two colleges of law, one
of doctors of the civil law, the other of doctors
of the canon law; and two separate colleges of
the doctors of philosophy and medicine. These
colleges seem to have been corporations^ in which
a limited number of doctors of the several facul-
ties were united, and monopolized the power
of promotion or admission to degrees, to the ex-
clusion of the other doctors, who, according to
the earlier constitution of the universit}^, had an
equal right to exercise it. They were confirmed,
however, by the statutes of the year 1397. The
first origin of the legal colleges runs back to the
twelfth century: probably they were then open
to all doctors. The legal colleges were each
under a prior ; how the others were governed,
Savigny does not state. By these colleges, or
faculties, the candidates for degrees were exa-
mined. They had a building for their common
use, in which they met, near the cathedral; be-
cause the public examinations were held in the
cathedral, and degrees solemnly conferred there.
Savigny warns his readers, that these colleges of
civil and canon law are not to be confounded
with' the College of Doctors^ Advocates^ and Jvdgesy
which was an institution of the city of Bologna for
civic purposes. It may not be superfluous to warn
the English reader not to confound these colleges,
UNIVERSITIES. 57
which were merely corporate faculties, with the
English notion of the word college. There were
some colleges, in our sense of the word, which were
restricted to the relief of really indigent scholars ;
but these foundations never had any weight or
influence in any Italian university.
To return to the collation of degrees : it is pro-
bable, for the reason assigned by Savigny, that
they were first conferred by authority soon after
1 158. In the early part of the succeeding century,
in consequence of the frequent promotions of un-
worthy persons, Honorius III. interposed his au-
thority, and placed the promotions under the super-
intendence of the archdeacon of Bologna, who
thus became the chancellor of the university. But
corruptions of a worse sort were behind. It is
necessary to observe first, that originally scholars
were forbidden to marry into the families of Bo-
lognese citizens without the licence of the rector.
Exemptions from this prohibition were granted,
which were at last extended to all the descendants
of all doctors. By the terms of this exemption, it
is manifest that the doctors of the university had
become closely connected with the families of the
citizens. This connexion prepared the way for
the gradual encroachments of municipal selfishness;
and at last the principal chairs in the university
were granted only to Bolognese citizens. But the
actual doctors profited by the example, and went a
58 ON THE ORIGIN OP
Step further, and took an oath not to grant degrees
to any but members of their own families. This
outrageous monopoly began to produce its natural
effects in the ruin of the university ; and commo-
tions and struggles ensued between the years 1295
and 1304, which ended in compelling the doctors
to admit all Bolognese equally to degrees : but the
rank of doctor, at least in the two legal colleges, or
faculties, was still confined to citizens of Bologna.
There were two examinations to be undergone,
or rather two disputations to be maintained, before
a candidate could be admitted to the dignity of
doctor of law. The first was a private examination
before the college or faculty of doctors. There was
a whimsical regulation, that if any doctor in the
examination or disputation did not treat the novice
lovingly^ he was punished by suspension from his
functions for a year. There seems reason to ap-
prehend, that, before such an enactment would be
made, the ordeal must have been a very severe one.
After this first examination, the aspirant was called
a licentiate ; that is, he had received a licence to
submit himself to the public examination. The
second, or public examination, took place in the
cathedral, as we have noticed ; and here the pecu-
liarity of the constitution of the Bolognese school
manifests itself. On this occasion it was not the
doctors but the scholars who disputed against the
candidate. It may reasonably be conjectured, that
UNIVERSITIES. 59
in the most ancient period of the university, this
public examination by the scholars was the only
one ; and that the previous examination in private
by the doctors, by which the latter was gradually
reduced to a mere form, was a contrivance to
remedy the preposterous distribution of authority
in the ancient school. Frequently the public ex-
amination followed the private one after a very
short interval ; but sometimes a considerable inter-
val was suffered to elapse between them, and thus
the title of licentiate became a species of degree.
At one time, the commencing doctors took an
oath to the magistrates of the city, that they would
not lecture out of Bologna ; but this oath was
abolished on the petition of the scholars in 1312.
Savigny tells us, that professors who migrated to
other cities with their scholars, were subject to
confiscation and very heavy fines ; but how these
were exacted in such a case does not appear.
All doctors had the power of lecturing in right
of their degree. Licentiates could not lecture
without permission from the rector : but not only
licentiates, but simple scholars, were allowed to
lecture. If they had studied diligently five or six
years, they obtained a licence from the rector, upon
payment of a fee proportioned to the magnitude of
the division of law upon which they proposed to
lecture. The scholar who had lectured upon an
entire title or treatise, or who had delivered a
60 ON THE ORIGIN OF
formal interpretation upon a point of law, took the
name of bachelor, and was considered to have
earned this first degree.
One remarkable and important character of the
school of Bologna was, that, at a comparatively
early period, its professors or lecturers received
public salaries. Not to insist upon the position of
Conringius, that Irnerius began to lecture upon
law at the expense of the city ; in 1279 we find the
scholars, instead of paying their fees individually,
contracting with a professor to lecture to them upon
a certain subject for a certain fixed sum. The
next year they petitioned the city to pay a pro-
fessor named by them a certain sum for lecturing
on the Decretum ; and their petition was granted.
In 1269, two chairs were established with a fixed
salary ; one on the civil law, the other on the canon
law : but the choice of the lecturers remained with
the scholars ; and they elected annually, sometimes
re-electing the same person, sometimes choosing
a new lecturer. A hundred years afterwards the
salaried chairs were much increased in number;
so that, in 1384, there were nineteen salaried lec-
turers in law, and twenty in arts. The professor of
civil law, who had the highest salary, received three
hundred florins. By this time the professors began
to consider themselves as public functionaries, and
election by the scholars became more rare. In
1420, there were twenty-one lecturers in law, and
UNIVERSITIES. 61
scarcely one is said to have been elected. Nor
were the salaried professors always doctors : on
the contrary, six salaried chairs were established,
which were held by lecturing scholars. The date
of this foundation is not known. It existed in
1388 ; and Savigny supposes it to have originated
about the middle of the fourteenth century. These
lecturers were elected annually by seventy-six elec-
tors. Doctors, licentiates, and natives of Bologna,
were ineligible ; an exclusion, which was evidently
a re-action against the monopoly of the colleges ;
and the chairs were divided equally between the
Citramontane and the Ultramontane scholars. Af-
terwards, on account of the tumults attending the
elections, it became customary for the two univer-
sities to present twelve candidates, from whom
were chosen by lot four lecturers on the civil law,
and two on the dectetals. According to Conrin-
gius, in the year 1 664, there were at Bologna one
hundred and twenty-six professors, of whom forty-
nine were professors of law; and the senate of
Bologna was said to expend annually in their sala-
ries nearly forty thousand crowns.* The professors
who had no public salary, received fees from their
pupils ; and in the flourishing times of the imiver-
sity many acquired great wealth.
Anciently, the professors held their schools in
their own houses ; but, in the fourteenth century,
* Conring. Diss. iii. s. 21.
62 ON THE ORIGIN OP
public schools were founded, in which the doctors
had a right of lecturing each twice a week ; the
bachelors in the afternoon, if they were not occu-
pied by a doctor.
We will conclude our account with a few words
on the jurisdiction of the university. The rector
had supreme authority over all the members of it,
except the German nation, which was subject only
to its own procurators. The counsellors of the na-
tions constituted a council which assisted the rector.
The civil jurisdiction of the rector was not ques-
tioned when both parties in a suit belonged to the
university, or if a citizen voluntarily brought before
him a suit against a scholar ; but if a suit against
a scholar was brought before the magistrates of the
city, and the rector claimed to hear it, there gene-
rally ensued a great contest between the university
and the city, in spite of the edict of Roncaglia.
Soon after the rectorate was first instituted, the
city endeavoured to abolish the office^ or to render
it dependent upon the civic power. In 1214 espe-
cially, great tumults were occasioned by these
efforts. But the university maintained its privileges ;
and they were at length fully established by the
papal power. The criminal jurisdiction of the rec-
tor in general extended only to matters of acade-
mical discipline. He had the power of punishing
both professors and scholars by fine and expulsion.
Sometimes, in graver matters, a mixed jurisdiction
UNIVERSITIES. 63
was exercised by the rector and the magistrates of
the city. But in 1544, the pope confirmed the
criminal jurisdiction of the rector, when both the
offending and the injured party belonged to the
university, and the offence was not capital.
The university had statutes at an early period,
since they were confirmed by the pope Innocent
IV. in 1253. They were revised and corrected
every twenty years by eight scholars appointed for
the purpose, and called Statutariu They were
finally confirmed in 1544 by the pope, who had
then become the sovereign of the city, and were
made binding on the whole community.*
One of the most singular points in the history of
the University of Bologna is the admission of the
female sex to its honours and offices. There is
mention in early times of learned women on whom
degrees were conferred. It is said that Novella
d' Andrea read lectures on jurisprudence, but took
the precaution of drawing a curtain between herself
and her auditors. Mrs. Piozzi mentions la Dotte-
ressa Laura Bassi, who taught mathematics and
natural philosophy ; and Lady Morgan has intro-
duced us to Signora Clotilda Tambroni, a learned
professor of Greek. But the boldest inroad into
* The whole of this account of the internal constitution of
the University of Bologna is extracted from Savigny, torn,
iii. although with a very great variation of arrangement.
64 ON THE ORIGIN OF
the scientific province of the ruder sex was made
by Madonna Manzolina, who lectured on anatomy.
We shall devote a little time and attention to the
University of Salerno. This we will do, partly on
account of its antiquity ; although it does not appear
to have been taken as a model, or to have deter-
mined the form of more recent universities, as
Paris and Bologna did ; but chiefly, because it was
the first and most famous Medical University. As
Paris was the great school of theology, and Bo-
logna of law, so, from the twelfth to the fourteenth
century, was Salerno the school of medicine. In
the neighbourhood of Salerno was the monastery of
Monte Cassino. About the middle of the eleventh
century, or a little later, Constantino, a native of
Africa, who professed to have spent nine-and- thirty
years in travelling throughout Asia, for the sake of
acquiring learning in the most celebrated seats of
Arabic philosophy, settled at Salerno, and after a
while became a monk of Monte Cassino. Here he
compiled, and dedicated to his abbot, Desiderius,
(who, in 1086, when Gregory VII. died at Salerno,
was elected to succeed him, under the name of
Victor III.) several medical works, which he pro-
fessed to be original, but which were in reality for
the most part translations from the Arabic. It is
likely that among the Arabic works which he thus
made known to the Latin world, were Arabic
versions of Greek medical writers. At least,
UNIVERSITIES. 65
very soon after, we find the Salernitan school in
possession of a Latin translation of some works of
Hippocrates, which was probably derived from an
Arabic source. These works of Constantine gave
an impulse to the study of medicine in Italy ; and
as copies of them were more easily procured at
Salerno than elsewhere, students of medicine re-
sorted thither ; and in a short time a medical school
was formed, in which public instruction was given
by masters of the art. A poetical work on tlie
preservation of health is said to have been com-
posed by the masters of this new school, and
addressed to Robert Duke of Normandy, the son
of the Conqueror. If this be true, its date must
have been either the end of the eleventh century,
or the beginning of the twelfth.*
Conringius more than once refers the establish-
ment of the school of Salerno to Roger I. the Nor-
man sovereign of Sicily and Prince of Salerno,
about the year llOO.f It seems doubtful, how-
ever, whether there is any ground for this asser-
tion beyond the fact that Roger published a severe
edict, regulating the practice of medicine, and for-
bidding any one to attempt it, under pain of con-
fiscation of all his goods, who was not approved
" bt/ the mugistrates and judges^ But this edict is
rather an argument against the importance of the
school at this time ; since, if it had acquired any
* Conriog. Diss. iii. s. 22. -f* Diss. i. s. 45 ; iii. s. 22.
F
66 ON THE ORIGIN OF
authority, the testimonial of the masterd to the
medical aspirant would probably have been requir-
ed, as it was at a later time by the constitutions of
Frederic II. If, however, this edict raised the
standard of the medical profession, it might occa-
sion a greater resort of students to the only seat of
medical learning.*
Of the fortunes of the Salernitan school during
the twelfth century Conringius affords no particu-
lar evidence; but ^gidius Corboliensis, a poeti-
cal physician of Paris, who lived at the end of the
twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth,
reproaches the University of Salerno with granting
medical degrees, and consequently a licence to
lecture, to unlearned and inexperienced youths :
^^ Doctrma quibus opus esset, fenilaeque flagello,
«« £t pendere magis vetuli doctoris ab ore,
^' Quam sibi non dignas cathedrae prsesumere laudes."i*
In the thirteenth century we find Frederic II.
carefully regulating by his constitutions the whole
practice of medicine in his paternal dominions, and
the course of medical education in his universities
of Salerno and Naples. He ordains, that, because
the science of medicine cannot be understood with-
out a previous knowledge of the rules of logic, no
one shall study medicine unless he first study
* See Conring. as above, and Diss. iv. s. 23.
•f Conring. Diss. iii. ss. 18, 22.
UNIVERSITIES. 67
logic for three years. It is provided, however, that
he may learn surgery before the time thus assigned.
Then it appears that the course of medical study
was to last five years ; and in those five years the
masters were to teach in the schools the authentic
books of Hippocrates and Galen, both in theoretical
and practical medicine. Nor was any one to prac-
tise surgery, unless he had studied that branch of
medicine at least a year, and had learned in the
schools the anatomy of human bodies. After five
years of study, the student who desired to practise
medicine was required, in the first place, to present
himself at Salerno in the public assembly of the
university, and to be approved by the judgment of
the masters. After this solemn examination he was
to receive written testimonials, not only of the mas-
ters, but of those who had taken a degree, but did
not teach ;* which testified that he had studied the
requisite time, and bore evidence to his sufficient
knowledge and his general good character. With
these testimonials, by which the academical degree
was conferred upon him, he was to present himself
before the king himself, or, in his absence, before
the viceroy of the kingdom,f and receive from him
a licence to practise medicine. Confiscation and
imprisonment for a year was the punishment de-
nounced against all who should presume to heal in
* « Tarn magistronun quam ordinatorum nostrorum/
•)- *^ Ad prseseDtiam nostram .... ordinatus acoedat.*
99
68 ON THE ORIGIN OF
violation of this edict. The same process was
necessary to obtain a licence to practise surgery,
except that the time of study seems to have been
shorter : and even when all these conditions were
fulfilled, the new physician was required to prac-
tise for an entire year with the counsel of an expe-
rienced brother in the art.
There are points in this singular ordinance which
deserve consideration, and possibly imitation, even
in the present age. We perceive that Frederic
considered a preparatory education, by which the
reasoning powers should be exercised and trained,
to be as necessary to the physician as his course of
professional study. He though t^t?e years a period
not too long for a regular medical education. He
placed a short period of apprenticeship to the prac-
tice of the art, if so it may be called, after^ and not
before, the course of theoretical study. And highly
as he favoured the universities of his kingdom, he
refused to consider an academical degree as con-
stituting in itself a licence to practise, and required
the licence of the supreme power to be superadded.
The degree was merely a testimonial.
By another part of the same constitutions he
enacted, that no one should lecture on medicine or
surgery, except at Salerno or Naples ; and that no
one should take the title of master, unless he had
been diligently examined by the masters of medi-
UNIVERSITIES. 69
cine and the officials of the crown. By the latter
term we are probably to understand some digni-
taries entrusted with the superintendence of the
universities.
There are several other curious provisions, which
enact that a physician is to visit his patients twice
a day, and once in the night, if required ; which
regulate his fees fop a visit and a journey ; which
prohibit his contracting for the cure of a patient
for a fixed sum ; and which forbid his forming any
partnership with the compounders of medicines,
ccnfectUmariij as they are called. Much vigilance
is exercised over these confectioners. Not only are
they required to take an oath that they will make
their confections according to the prescribed form,
but in every district of the kingdom two circum-
spect and trusty men are to be appointed, and
bound by oath, under whose testimony all elec-
tuaries and syrups, and other medicines, are to be
legally made and sold. At Salerno this office is
assigned to the masters in physic. But these are
matters which may be interesting to a medical an-
tiq[uary, but have little connexion with the history
of universities.*
There was a school of law at Salerno ; but we
hear nothing of philosophy or theology. The uni-
versity fell into decay from the neglect and dis-
* Coming. Diss. iii. s. 23.
70 ON THE ORIGII^ OF
couragement of the French race of kings ; and in
the time of Conringius (the seventeenth century)
had long entirely perished.
Frederic II. founded a university at Naples,
and endowed it with ample privileges;* but its
degrees were never acknowledged in other univer-
sities. Savigny ascribes this to its peculiar consti-
tution, by which the degrees ,were formally con-
ferred by the king himself, and not by the acade-
mical faculties. But it is at least as probable, that,
as Frederic was always denounced as the enemy
of the church, the degrees of his university never
received from the popes that catholic extension,
which, as we have explained, the pope alone was
considered to have the power of giving.
The vulgar tradition of the University of Oxford
used to be, that it was founded by King Alfred about
the year 890 or 895. The college called University
College* which is the most ancient in Oxford, was
supposed to be the germ or rudiment of the uni-
versity; but this tradition has fared as ill in the
hands of critical inquirers as the Parisian tradition
of Charlemagne. There is no evidence to support
it, except a passage found in (mly one manuscript
of Asser, the biographer of Alfred ; which for that
reason is justly believed to be an interpolation.
And as to University College, nothing is recorded
of it before the year 1219, when Roger Caldwell is
* Conring. Diss. v. s. 9.
UNIVERSITIES. 71
named as the master of it ; and it seems not to
have been endowed for the maintenance of gra-
duates till 1280, when the university applied to this
purpose a bequest of William Archdeacon of Dur-
ham, who died in 1249.* It appears, however, that
Oxford was a place of study in the reign of Edward
the Confessor. Ingulfus, who was Abbot of Croy-
land, in the Isle of Ely, under William the Con-
queror, says of himself, that he was educated first
at Westminster, and then passed to Oxford, where
he made proficiency in such books of Aristotle as
were then accessible to students, and in the two first
books of Tully's rhetoric.f Mr. Hallam, with a
tender and considerate feeling towards the old tra-
dition, observes, '^ Since a school for dialectics and
rhetoric subsisted at Oxford, a town of but middling
size, and not the seat of a bishop, we are naturally
led to refer its foundation to one of our kings ; and
none who had reigned after Alfred appears likely
to have manifested such zeal for learning." Mr.
Dyer appears to hold, with regard to such tradi-
tions of royal foundation generally, the same
opinion which we have intimated about the con-
nexion of the University of Paris with Charlemagne :
" We have been for giving the foundation of Ox-
* Camden's Britannia. See also Dyer's Privileges of the
Univernty of Cambridge, vol. ii. Diss. Gen. p. clxii.
f Conring. Diss. iii. s. 7* Hallam, State of Europe during
the Middle Ages, chap. ix. part ii. ; ed. Iv. vol. iii. p. 524.
72 ON THE ORIGIN OF
ford University to Alfred, &c. ; correctly, however,
only so far as princes may have founded or en-
couraged schools, and prepared the way for what
we now call universities."*
For more than half a century after the time
when Ingulfus must have studied at Oxford, we
find no traces of the existence of the school. Ro-
bert Pulein, a theologian from Paris, expounded
the Holy Scriptures at Oxford under the patronage
of Henry I. (Beauclerc), and gave new life to
the study of theology in England. He continued
his labours under the protection of Henry H.
till he was called to Rome, and became chan-
cellor of the apostolic see.f In the reign of Ste-
phen we find that Vacarius, a Lombard by birth,
who had studied the civil law at Bologna, came
into England, and formed a school of law at Ox-
ford. It is clear, as Mr. Hallam observes, that a
foreign teacher would not have selected that city
as the place for his exertions, if he had not found
a seminary of learning already established there.
The students of philosophy and theology opposed
themselves to this new science ; and Stephen pro-
hibited Vacarius from teaching, and even demanded
that the books of law should be delivered up to
him. But this prohibition appears to have had
• Privileges of the University of Cambridge, vol. i. p. 383,
note.
•j- Camden*s Britannia.
UNIVERSITIES. 73
little effect; since we find by two decretals of
Alexander III. of 1164 and 1170, that Vacarius
remained in England in the reign of Henry U.;
and we may reasonably conclude that he did not
remain here idle: inde'ed, there is evidence that
he founded a school of law, in which he had suc-
cessors; since we find from Giraldus Cambrensis
and another contemporary authority, that there
was a great rivalry between the legists and the
artistSy who complained that the study of philoso-
phy was depreciated in comparison with the study
of law.
On account of the difficulty and expense of ob-
taining copies of the original books of the Roman
law, and the poverty of his English scholars, Vaca-
rius compiled an abridgement of the digests and
codex, in which their most essential parts were
preserved, with some difference of arrangement,
and illustrated from the other law-books. Manu-
scripts of this work are still in existence. It bore
on its title that it was ** pauperilms presertim desti"
natus /" and hence the Oxford students of law ob-
tained the name of Pauper istcB. Savigny says that
this book was written in England about the year
1 149. Vacarius, therefore, must have commenced
his public lectures a little before that time ; and we
thus gain a date for the reappearance of the school
of Oxford.*
* Hallam, vol. ill. pp. 517* 525 : Savigny, torn. iv. c. 36.
74 ON THE ORIGIN OF
The study of the civil law obtained but little
favour in England, except with the clergy. The
resistance of the nation to the encroachments of
the papacy in the reign of John, disposed all lay-
men to look with suspicion on a system of law im-
ported from Italy, and recommended by ecclesi-
astical authority, and they preferred adhering to
their own traditionary common law. Afler a time
even the clergy regarded the civil law only as sub-
sidiary to the study of the canon law. The canon
law must have followed close upon the civil law,
and have been taught at Oxford within a few years
after the publication of Gratian's Decrettmi ; for
the Benedictines of St. Maur bear testimony to the
existence of an eminent school of canon law at
Oxford about the end of the twelfth century, to
which many students repaired from Paris.*
The testimony of Ant. a Wood expressly con-
firms Savigny's opinion, by assigning 1149 as the
date of the introduction of the civil law into Ox-
ford ; and he refers to the same date, or to a time
very little later, the introduction of the scholastic
theology and of the degree of doctor.f It can
scarcely be doubted that these latter were intro-
duced from Paris; and it may be suspected that
a Wood is a little too early in claiming for Oxford
* Hist. Litt. de la France, t. ix. p. 216 : cited by Mr.
Hallam.
f Hist. et. Antiq. Univ. Oxon. lib. i. p. 24. in Itter.
UNIVERSITIES. 75
the title of doctor. Of course, when the appella-
tion was first used, it signified merely teaehery
and was not a technical degree. A. Wood states
his belief that mention may be found of masters in
theology in pubhc acts of the reign of Richard I.
Camden assigns the reigns of Henry II. and
Richard as the period in which the university
grew up to a flourishing condition, and commemo-
rates Robert Pulein as the chief author of its cele-
brity.
Oxford is called a universih/ in a public instru-
ment of the drd of John, a.d. 1201, which is of
earlier date than any extant application of the
word to Paris.* In that year, according to Wood,
it contained three thousand scholars.f Its earliest
charter was granted by John. Its privileges were
confirmed and extended by Henry III. in 1255 ;
Edward I. in 1275 ; Edward II. in 1315 ; and Ed-
ward III. in 1327 ; and by succeeding kings. It
appears that the university sought a recognition
and renewal of its privileges at the beginning of
every new reign. The same was the case with the
University of Cambridge. Their privileges now
depend upon the Act of Incorporation, which was
passed with regard to both of them in the thir-
teenth of Elizabeth, a.d. 1570. The body of sta-
tutes, which is still nominally unrepealed, how-
• Dyer, Privileges, vol. i. p. 412, note.
f Hist, and Antiq. p. 177*
76 ON THE ORIGIN OP
ever modified by subsequent interpretations, ad-
ditions, or restrictions, or silently antiquated in
practice ; which the university still professes to
obey, and which every member of it swears to
obey; was compiled in 1636, when Archbishop
Laud was chancellor, chiefly from the existing
statutes, and was solemnly ratified by the convo-
cation, the chancellor, and the king.*
The University of Oxford was confirmed by
papal authority, and received such privileges as the
See of Rome claimed the power of bestowing. It
was mentioned in the Constitutions published by
Clement V. after the council of Vienne, a.d. 1311,
in company with Paris, Bologna, and Salamanca.
It was ordained that schools should be erected for
Hebrew, and Arabic, and Chaldee, in each of these
stadia; and that all prelates and ecclesiastical
corporations in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ire-
land should be taxed for the maintenance of pro-
fessors of these tongues at Oxford. These were
the same Constitutions mentioned above, in which
the expense upon taking a doctor s degree was
limited.
We have, however, several notable instances,
how little the authority of the popes was regarded,
or rather how utterly it was denied, by the more
vigorous of our kings, in matters relating to the
universities. Edward I. published a brief, which was
• Edinb. Rev.
UNIVERSITIES. 77
confirmed by a parliament held at York, against the
preaching friars, and their proceedings at Oxford,
although they were supported by papal bulls.*
Edward III. in the fortieth year of his reign, in
consequence of petitions of the universities of Ox-
ford and Cambridge on the one hand, and of the
friars of the four mendicant orders on the other,
made an ordinance, with the assent of parliament,
by which, after removing a prohibition imposed by
the universities upon the admission of young scho-
lars into the aforesaid orders, it was enacted, that
all bulls and processes issuing from the court of
Rome, and procured by the friars against either
of the universities or any person in them, should
thenceforth be absolutely null and void ; and the
friars were forbidden to use or allege them.t It is
true that the bulls and citations seem to have been
procured by the friars in consequence of a statute
of the universities which they deemed a grievance,
and which the king and parliament repealed ; but
it is observable that the act does not wait for the
See of Rome to recall its edicts, but at once de-
clares them null and void. In like manner the
same king, in the forty-ninth year of his reign,
abrogated statutes made by the chancellor and
* Ayliffe*s Hist, of Oxford, vol. ii. pp. 19, 20, in Dyer's
PrivU. vol. i. p. 426.
•f The Act is given at length in the Norman French,
Dyer's Privileges, vol. i. pp. 71> 72.
78 ON THE ORIGIN OP
proctors and the rest of the governing body of the
university, cited the official persons before him, and
removed them for contumacy, although they plead-
ed in justification the pope's bulls.* It is true that
many assumptions of authority on the part of the
Roman See were received with silence or sub-
mission, especially by less able princes ; but these
precedents are sufficient to show that constitu-
tionally the power of the king and parliament was
held to be supreme, and the interference of the
pontiff was only by sufferance. It is clear, likewise,
that our early kings did not consider the universi-
ties as corporations, to be among the objects of
ecclesiastical superintendence, but took them under
their own peculiar authority. Thus, Henry III.
once, when he was going to Gascony, appointed
the Archbishop of York and two others guardians
of the university, to receive complaints during his
absence. If it had been subject to ecclesiastical
authority, the Bishop of Lincoln, the bishop of the
diocese, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, the me-
tropolitan of the province, would have been the
proper depositaries of all complaint8.f
In 1209 John caused three scholars of the Uni-
versity of Oxford to be hanged on a charge of mur-
der ; and in consequence the whole body of scholars
left the town to pursue their studies elsewhere,
• Dyer's Privil. vol. i. p. 426.
t Dyer's Privil. vol. i. p. 426, from Ant. a Wood.
UNIVERSITIES. ' 79
some betaking themselves to Cambridge, some to
Reading.^ It may be presumed that they soon
returned ; for the university continued to flourish.
It was augmented in 1229, and the following year^
by a similar migration of the discontented scholars
of Paris, who were invited over by Henry Ill.'t'
Wood gives an exaggerated statement of the num-
ber of scholars at this time, from which it may
fairly be deduced that it was really very great.J
The university continued to flourish in the follow-
ing reigns : Matthew of Paris expressly ranked
Oxford as an ecclesiastical school next to Paris,
and called it the foundation of the church.§ It
must have suffered, no doubt, in the wars of the
Koses; the increase of universities on the Conti-
nent checked the influx of foreign students ; and
after the commencement of the Reformation in
England under Henry VIII. when the monastic
orders were dissolved and their property confis-
cated, and the church in its unsettled state offered
to students of theology few prizes except the crown
of martyrdom, the number of scholars was very
* Matth. Paris, in Mr. Hallam.
•f See above. The earliest authentic document in Hare's
Register of the Charters, &c. of the University of Cambridge,
is of Henry HI. An. Reg. 13, a.d. 1229, "Liter» Pa-
tentes ad Universitatem Parisiensem transmissse pro scholari-
bus invitandis, ut se studii causd in Angliam transferant."
X See Hallam, vol. iii. p. 626.
§ Coming. Diss. iii. s. 7) and Wood.
80 ON THE ORIGIN OF
much diminished. In the year 1546 there were
only thirteen degrees conferred ; and in 1552,
though the students who had their names on the
books were a thousand and fifteen, yet the greater
part were absent, and had in effect quitted the
university.* The general establishment of schools,
and the invention of printing, which causes private
study to be substituted for attendance on the oral
instruction of public lectures, have prevented the
university in modern times from ever equalling the
ancient number of its pupils ; but it is not our in-
tention to trace this part of its more recent history.
Collegiate foundations were established in Ox-
ford at a very early period. Of the existing
colleges, University College and Baliol College
were founded before the end of the reign of
Henry III. ; Merton College in the reign of Ed-
ward I. ; and Oriel College was founded by Adam
de Brome, with the licence of Edward II. So little
honour is attached in history to the memory of this
unhappy prince, that it will be charitable to bear
in mind his connexion with a foundation which is
now the institution of the greatest utility and high-
est reputation in the university. The motive for
these foundations was the same which we have
explained above in speaking of the University of
Paris: to give the scholars facilities for obtaining
lodgings, to relieve the indigent from some portion
• A. Wood, in Edinb. Rev. No. cvi. p. 410.
universities/ 81
of their expenses, and to provide more effectually
for discipline by introducing into the university a
species of domestic superintendence. But the
number of colleges in which provision was made by
endowment for the pecuniary benefit of their mem-
bers, was nothing in comparison with the number
o£ halls or inns in which the students liv^d chiefly
at their own expense, and which merely furnished
cheap and convenient lodging, and the supervision
of a respectable tutor or principal, who was responsi-
ble to the university for the good conduct of his pupils.
In the early part of the fourteenth century, at the
commencement of the reign of Edward 11. the
number of halls is said to have been about three
hundred, while the colleges were only three.* For
the establishment of these halls nothing more was
necessary, than that a certain number of scholars
should agree to live together, and find a doctor
or master of their own choice, to act as their prin-
cipal ; and that they should hire a house, and find
caution for a year's rent. The chancellor or vice-
chancellor could not refuse to sanction the esta-
blishment, and admit the principal to his office.
In general the halls were held only upon lease ; but
by privileges similar to those which have been no-
ticed in foreign universities, the rent of the halls
was fixed every five years by the taxors, and scho-
lars could not be ejected by the proprietor from a
• Wood, A.D. 1307, in Edinb. Rev. No. cvi. p. 409.
G
82 ON THE ORIGIN OF
building once occupied by them, so long as they
punctually paid the stipulated rent. The halls were
always subject to be visited and regulated by the
authority of the university.* The causes which
diminished the number of students in the university
diminished the number of halls, though the number
of endowed colleges gradually increased. At the
commencement of the fifteenth century the stu-
dents were decreasing, while the colleges had in-
creased to seven. In the early part of the sixteenth
century the number of halls had fallen to ffty-five^
while the endowed colleges amounted to twelve.t
Not very long after, the university, in a public
letter addressed to Sir Thomas More^ complaining
of its general state of decay, spoke of the ruin of
the halls, and explained that the colleges alone were
enabled to preserve their existence by means of
the endowments provided for their members. In
1546 there were only eight inhabited halls ;J and
five years after the historian remarks that the
ancient halls were either desolate, or were become
receptacles of poor religious people turned out of
their cloisters. In these circumstances the halls
lost their value as property to the owners, and
several were bought up at a low rate by the col-
leges. The old colleges thus extended their build-
• Edinb. Rev. No. cvi. pp. 408 and 412.
t Wood, A.D. 1503 and 1516. Edinb. Rev. p. 409.
X Wood.
UNIVERSITIES. 83
ings. Before this period they had rarely, if ever,
admitted any pupils who were not members upon
their foundations, and provided for by endow-
ment; but now they began to take iii pupils who
were not on their foundations ; and the diminution
of the number of students in the university made it
possible for them to receive them almost all. Six
new colleges were founded in the seventeenth cen-
tury, partly, it may reasonably be concluded, in
consequence of the little cost with which sites for
them could be purchased. Since that period, one
college has been founded (Wadham, in 1610, or
soon after) ; and three of the eight surviving halls
changed by endowment into colleges, of which how-
ever one is since extinct.
It cannot be questioned, that one reason of the
decay of the halls and the increase of the colleges
was the more effectual superintendence and tui-
tion which was supplied in the colleges, in con-
sequence of the number of graduates who were
members of them. In later times, since the tuition
of the colleges has supplanted the public instruction
of the university delivered by professors and public
lecturers, in the way which will be explainfed pre-
sently, it is absolutely necessary to the existence
of the halls to have tutors in addition to their prin-
cipals. But besides the natural operation of these
. causes, there has been a piece of university legisla-
tion, by which the monopoly of the colleges has been
84 ON THB ORIGIN OP
hitherto secured against any revival of the halls.
When the all-powerful Earl of Leicester was chan-
cellor of the university, about 1570, he obtained
from the university the absolute right of nominating
the principals of all halls (except St. Edmund Hall,
which is attached to Queen's College), and conse-
quently in effect a veto upon the institution of new
halls; and this right is now vested by statute in
his successors. The colleges, which had then be-
gun to exercise great influence in the university,
had clearly an interested motive in procuring this
concession; and since that time no new hall has
been opened.*
This review of the progress and changes of the
collegiate foundations, and of other places for the
residence of the students, must be considered in
connexion with another point of the discipline of
the university. It has long been necessary for
every member of the university below the degree
of master of arts to be also a member of some
college or hall ; and, in fact, the graduates as
well as undergraduates are attached to some
• The Edinburgh Review, which has been followed in this
account of the origin and progress of the coUegiate founda-
tions, and of the relative position of the colleges and halls,
cites as its authorities on this point, '^ Wood, Hist, et Antiq.
Univ. lib. ii. p. 339. Hist, and Antiq. of Coll. and Halls,
p. 655 ; and Statuta Aularia, sect, v.'*
UNIVERSITIES. 85
foundation.* In the earliest times the scholars
lodged in the houses of the townsmen, as in Paris
and Bologna, and attended such lectures as they
chose. In 1231 it was ordained that "every clerk
or scholar resident in Oxford must subject himself
to the discipline and tuition of some master of the
schools." But this seems to mean only that he
must become the regular auditor of some regent
master ; it did not imply any domestic superin-
tendence, and had nothing to do with residence.
But in the beginning of the fifteenth century it
had become the established rule that every scho-
lar must be a member of some college or hall.
The scholars who attended the public lectures of
the university, without entering themselves at any
college or hall, were called chamber dekyns^ as in
Paris they were called martinets; and frequent
enactments were made against them.t In Paris,
as we have seen, it was only the scholars of the
* In Cambridge, a master of arts or superior graduate, if
he be resident in the town, may retain his privileges as a
member of the university, although his name be not on the
books of any eoUege. The ^^ commorantes in villa,'' as they
are called, are generally professors or other officers of the uni-
versity who are married, and who thus escape certain coUege
payments. Their number is small, but they are remarkable
as a monument of the early times, when the university was,
and the colleges were not.
t Wood, Ann. 1408, 1413, 1422, 1612, &c.
86 ON THE ORIGIN OP
faculty of arts who were compelled to enter at
some college ; but in Oxford the obligation was
imposed on all alike.
In connexion with this subject, we may remark
a point which will seem strange to those who know
only the actual state of the university. Entrance
at a college or haU did not imply entrance under
any particular tutor. Young students — and many in
those days were mere boys — were placed by their
friends under the care of tutors; but these were
private tutors ; and the university did not interfere
with the private arrangement. It was not till the
time when Leicester was chancellor, that the uni-
versity undertook to regulate who might be tutors ;
and it was not till the chancellorship of Laud, that
it was made necessary to enter under a tutor re-
sident in the same college or hall with the pupil.
Laud, therefore, may be regarded as the author of
the system of college tuition.*
The necessity of entering at some college or
hall, and the difficulty interposed in the way of
opening new halls like those of old time, are points
which deserve the most attentive consideration,
in connexion with the question which has been
recently revived of the abolition of religious tests
and subscriptions, and the admission of dissenters
to the universities. The late discussions have
^h, Bev. p. 392. oomparing Wood, a.d. 1581,
At. t. ill. 1.2.
and
UNIVERSITIES. 87
made it notorious, that at Oxford the student is
required at his matriculation to subscribe the
Thirty-nine Articles. This subscription was origi-
nally imposed by the Earl of Leicester. It may
be removed by the authority of parliament, along
with all similar subscriptions and oaths required
upon taking a degree; and thus the university
may be nominally opened to those who dissent
from the established church : and yet it is evident
that, even if this were done, the design of the legis-
lature might be frustrated by the separate colleges.
They might go so far as to require subscription
from all who entered them. It is not unlikely that
they would require it from members on their
foundations, if something equivalent be not re-
quired already. But without putting this case, it
is clear that by strictly insisting upon attendance
on the prayers in the college chapel and at the
administration of the holy communion, and by
lectures and examinations directed to the peculi-
arities of the theological system of the church of
England, they might deter conscientious dissenters
from joining them, or render their college residence
exceedingly irksome: and yet there is no access
to the university but through the colleges. The
colleges might thus debar the dissenters from the
advantages which the legislature is supposed to
have conceded to them ; and at the same time
they might argue plausibly that they themselves
88 ON THE ORIGIN OF
were exempt from legislative interference. Though
the universities beyond all doubt are public and
national establishments, and their public character
is emphatically recognised by their sending mem-
bers to parliament, the colleges in both universi-
ties (with perhaps one exception) are strictly
private foundations. Trinity College, Cambridge,
inasmuch as it was endowed by Henry VIII. with
the confiscated property of the religious houses,
may perhaps be considered as a public institution ;
but the other foundations, even those of royal
origin, must be acknowledged to be private. Now,
so long as private institutions obey the directions
of their founders, and do no positive evil, it may
be fairly argued that the le^rislature has no right to
interfere with them. No doubt, if they do harm, the
legislature may stop them ; but it would be a strong
doctrine to argue that it may rightfully compel them
to do more good than they otherwise would do. And
thus the colleges might suppose that parliament
would not intermeddle with their internal discipline.
If the bill which was rejected in the last ses-
sion of parliament should be passed in any future
session, and if any colleges should be inclined to
manifest their opposition in the way supposed, it
would be prudent in them to reflect, that if private
institutions, by their influence in the government
of a public institution, so incorporate themselves
with it that no one can belong to the public insti-
UNIVERSITIES. 89
tution without at the same time belonging to some
one of the private institutions, the public does not
become private by this union, but the private make
themselves public, and in this respect may right-
fully be dealt with as public bodies. But it would
be wise to avoid the occasion for such exertion
of authority; and I would suggest to those per-
sons who are exerting themselves to remove the
legal impediments to the admission of dissenters
to the universities, that, to make their measure
effectual, it will be necessary to remove the obsta-
cle to the erection of new halls ; that is, to repeal
the statute by which the absolute nomination of
the principal is vested in the chancellor or his
deputy, and, as in old time, to allow any master or
doctor to open a hall, and to become the principal of
it, subject to removal only by the act of the whole
university on specific cause shown against him.
If the ancient system be thus revived, the dissent-
ing students, who are desirous of entering the uni-
versity, may have their independent halls: in process
of time, any sect that wishes it may have a hall of
its own, in which it may assemble its students for
its peculiar religious exercises, and instruct them
in its peculiar religious tenets. The existing col-
leges may thus remain seminaries of the Church of
England, and be preserved from that intermixture
which they deprecate as inconsistent with the dis-
cipline an^ the system of education which they
90 ON THE ORIGIN OF
think themselves bound in conscience to uphold.
I have addressed this suggestion in the first
place to the advocates of the dissenters; but I
would address it with equal earnestness to their
opponents in the universities, as an easy and bene-
ficial compromise under a pressure which it re-
quires no spirit of prophecy to foretell that they
will not long be able to resist.*
There is no reason to fear lest graduates should
not be found to assume the ofiices of principals
and tutors in the new halls. Recent events have
made it manifest that at Cambridge, at least, such
men might be found among the resident members
of the university distinguished for ability and learn-
ing. But there is no reason why the power should
be confined to the members actually resident, or
even to those whose names are now on the college
books. Any graduate of the university may be sup-
posed to be equally competent, and by undertaking
the office would become equally responsible.
It would be a collateral benefit arising from the
growth of such institutions, that as at first they
would be more scantily supplied with internal tui-
tion than the ancient colleges, the professors and
public lecturers of the universities might either be
induced by self-interest, or might be called upon
by authority^ to resume the office of instruction
* Siiioe thii puwge was written, the same suggestion has
Imou Bwde in the Edinlmrgh Review, No. cxxi, October, 1834.
UNIVERSITIES. 91
which is imposed upon them by the ancient consti-
tution of the university, and which now in general
they have practically renounced, and suffered to
slip into the hands of the college tutors.
These remarks on the mode in which the uni-
versities may best be opened to dissenters, apply
equally to Oxford and Cambridge. I have thrown
the discussion into the review of the history of
Oxford, because there was not before me equally
ample information with regard to the changes in
the collegiate system of Cambridge. From the
resemblance in the origin and constitution of the
two universities, their resemblance in their earliest
periods, and their resemblance at the present day,
and from the identity of the circumstances in which
they have been placed, it cannot be doubted that
similar revolutions have happened in both. I shall
now proceed to the history of Cambridge; and
after a slight sketch of it, I shall endeavour to
show how both our English universities have devi-
ated from their original constitution in their method
of instruction and in their internal government.
.. The traditions of the Universities of Paris and
Oxford, with regard to their foundation by the
famous kings Charlemagne and Alfred, are such as
would tempt chroniclers to repeat them without
stopping to consider the truth of them ; but the
tradition of the origin of the University of Cam-
bridge is of so very unpretending a character, that
92 ON THE ORIGIN OP
though the external evidence for it is not very
strong, it may fairly be lefl to stand on its own
probability. It is said that Joffred, Abbot of Croy-
land in 1109, successor of Ingulphus, ^' sent over to
his manor of Cotenham nigh Cambridge, Gislebert,
his fellow monk and professor of divinity, and three
other monks who followed him into England (from
Orleans). From Cotenham they daily repaired to
Cambridge. There they hired a public barn, made
open profession of their sciences, and in a little
time drew a number of scholars together. In less
than two years' time, their number increased so
much, from the country as well as town, that there
was never a house, barn, or church, big enough to
hold them all. Upon which they dispersed them-
selves in different parts of the town, imitating the
University of Orleans." Three of the party taught
the three branches of the Trivium, — grammar, logic,
and rhetoric ; and Gislebert preached to the people
on Sundays and holidays.*
* Peter of Blois ; appendix to Ingulfus : in Camden's
Britannia, and Gale's Script. Angl. vol. i. p. 114. The
mention of the University of Orleans probably involves
an anachronism, since Savigny notes nothing more of the
antiquity of this school, than that it was already flourishing
in 1236 ; and that it was not very ancient may be presumed
from its not receiving the confirmation of the pope and the
king of France till the beginning of the fourteenth century.
It appears, however, that there was an ancient school attach-
ed to the cathedral, out of which the university grew. See
below, p. 101.
UNIYEBSITIBS. 93
An old building is pointed out at this day as
the barn in which these missionaries of learning
taught, or at least as retaining some portion of its
walls.
Mr. Hallam thinks that the earliest mention of
Cambridge as a place of learning is in the passage
of Matthew of Paris, already cited, in which he re-
lates, that in 1209 many of the students of Oxford
migrated thither, in consequence of an act of seve-
rity on the part of King John. He thinks that they
would not have removed themselves to a town so
distant, if it had not been already a seat of acade-
mical instruction.*
Mr. Dyer states that he finds the term university
applied to Cambridge in a public instrument of
122d.t According to Mr. Hallam, the date of its
first incorporation is the 15th of Henry III. or
1231. if In Hare's Register of the Charters and
other Monuments of the Liberties and Privileges
of the University, which is the authority on which
the university relies, there is no charter of incor-
poration of this year, nor indeed any of this mon-
arch ; but there are many public letters of Henry
relating to the university, the earliest of which are
of the date mentioned by Mr. Hallam. These fully
recognize the existence of the university, and of
* State of Europe during the Middle Ages, ed. 4. vol. iii.
p. 527<« note.
•f- Priv. vol. ii. p. 412, note. X As above.
94 ON THE ORIGIN OF
its masters and chancellor; the authority of the
chancellor and masters ; and some customs and
privileges of the university. It is probably, there-
fore, to these documents that Mr. Hallam refers,
as implying an incorporation ; or he may have been
misled by an inaccurate description of them. One
of the most important of these early monuments is
a royal letter addressed to the sheriff of the county,
(vice-comesy) calling upon him " to repress the in-
subordination of the clerks and scholars, and to
compel them to obedience to the injunctions of the
Bishop of Ely, either by imprisonment or banish-
ment from the university, according to the discre-
tion of the chancellor and masters."
A singular mixture of jurisdictions is implied in
this letter. The authority of the Bishop of Ely in
the University is distinctly recognized ; but the
contumacious who resist it are in fact to be tried
and judged by the chancellor and masters, and the
civil power of the sheriff is called in to execute
their sentence. In like manner there is a royal
letter addressed to the sheriff in the twenty-sixth
of Henry III. which Dyer has given at full length.*
In this letter it is ordered, that when " any clerk
of the university of scholars studying at • Cam-
bridge" has been guilty of any misdemeanour, and
has been convicted by the university, and sen-
tenced to imprisonment, if the burgesses of the
• Privileges, vol. i. p. 62.
UNIVERSITIES. 95
town are negligent in executing the sentence or
unable to do so, the sheriff, upon the warrant of the
chancellor of the university, is to cause such male-
factor to be apprehended and committed to prison,
and kept in safe custody, until the chancellor de-
mand his liberation ; and upon the demand of the
chancellor he is to be liberated. We see, therefore,
that the university in its early days enjoyed a pleni-
tude of jurisdiction, and received a support from
the civil power, which seem not to have been ac-
corded to the universities on the Continent. There
is another royal enactment of the forty-fifth of
Henry III. in which the privileges of the univer-
sity are still more distinctly recognized : " That
the king's justices are not to interfere in hearing
and determining offences between the scholars and
laymen ;*' the latter term meaning those who were
not scholars. Another most significant document
of the earliest date, that is, of the fifteenth of
Henry III. is a royal letter, which provides that
lodgings or hostels fhospitiaj shall be taxed (i. e,
valued) " according to the custom of the university^
namely, by two masters and two respectable and
lawful men of the town, and let to the scholars ac-
cording to their valuation." This order was repeated
in letters patent of the fiftieth of the same king,
with the addition that the valuation was to be re-
peated every five years : we have seen the same
privilege in force at Oxford.
96 ON THE ORIGIN OP
These and the other documents are prefaced in
Hare's collection by the letters of invitation, which
have been mentioned already, addressed to the
scholars of the University of Paris two years before,
viz. in 1229. It would appear, therefore, that this
protection accorded by the king to the hitherto
unnoticed school of Cambridge arose out of the
circumstances which caused the scholars of Paris
to quit their university and seek instruction in
England.
Many of the royal letters of this and the follow-
ing reigns relate to disputes between the university
and the corporation of the town about their re-
spective privileges ; and a frequent cause of com-
plaint is the remissness of the magistrates of the
town in executing the sentences of the chancellor.
The jurisdiction of the university in all cases,
whether civil or criminal, except those of felony and
mayhem, in which one of the parties was a master
or scholar, is repeatedly confirmed: nor was this
privilege questioned in the king's courts. In con-
sequence of a suit for false imprisonment insti-
tuted by a scholar against the chancellor of the
university, which seems to have been pending more
than three years, and in the course of which the
chancellor was committed to Newgate, the chan-
cellor and his successors were ultimately secured
by an act of parliament against any such action for
UNIVERSITIES. 97
any exercise of their jurisdiction.* The court of
Chancery, however, appears to have exercised a
power of supervision, or possibly was a court of
appeal.f
Another fruitful subject of royal letters is the
supply of provisions, and the controul exercised
over victuallers of all sorts, and the regulations
which the wisdom of our ancestors propounded
2Lgain8tforest(Ulers and regraters. The whole power
in such matters was finally vested in the chancellor,
to the exclusion of the town magistrates, in conse-
quence of a great riot, in which the townspeople
had carried away and burned the charters and other
muniments of the university. J
The first formal charter which is extant was
granted by Edward I. in the twentieth year of his
reign. Charters more and more ample were granted
by Edward II. Edward III. Richard II. and Henry
IV. in the very beginning of their reigns, as we
have observed to be the case with the Oxford
charters. These charters were confirmed by Ed-
ward IV. Edward VI. and Elizabeth; and they
were finally ratified by the act of parliament for
the incorporation of the two universities, in the
• Edward III. Ann. Reg. 9, 10, 11, 12 ; Dyer's Privileges,
pp. 16, 17.
t Richard II. A.R. 15 ; Dyer's Priv. p. 28, No. 64.
+ Richard II. A.R. 6 ; Dyer, p. 23.
H
98 ON THB ORIGIN OF
thirteenth of Elizabeth.* The statutes, which are
the basis of the actual laws of the university, and
of which by far the greater part, although practi-
cally obsolete, are still nominally binding, had been
given by Elizabeth in the preceding year. An. Reg.
12, A.D. 1570 ; and it may be assumed that they
were considered as confirmed by the subsequent
act of parliament as well as the grants and char-
ters.f
In Hare's Collection there are comparatively but
few bulls or papal rescripts. In the reign of Henry
VIll. the university and colleges were required to
send in their grants, charters, statutes, bulls, &c ;
and though the charters, &c. were restored, it seems
doubtful whether the bulls were ever returned.^
We are not certain, therefore, whether we possess
the most ancient documents of this kind. There is
a rescript of Gregory IX. (1227-1241), addressed
to the Prior of Barnwell, and the chancellor of the
univeraityy the existence of which, under its proper
head, must have been thus recognized. When
Hugh Balsham, Bishop of Ely, founded St. Peter's
college, he obtained a royal charter from Edward
I. in 1274, and a confirmation from the pope. We
find no papal bull relating to the university in the
* 13 Eliz. ch. 29.
*!- Dyer doubts the virtual confirmation ; Hist, of Univ. of
Cambridge, and Privileges, vol. i. pp. 158, 447 : but Serjeant
M iller^s opinion seems sound.
X Dyer's Privil. vol. i. p. 394.
UNIVERSITIES. 99
time of Edward I. yet it is not unlikely that one
was issued in confirmation of the charter granted
by him in the twentieth year of his reign ; at
least, we find it mentioned by an old writer, Robert
de Remington, that in this reign Cambridge from
a stadium was made a university^ such as there
was at Oxford, by the court of Rome.* It is ob-
servable, however, that in the constitution of Cle-
ment V. relating to the universities of Europe,
issued in 1311, although Oxford is mentioned,
Cambridge is not named. Mr. Dyer thinks that
it was not officially known to the pope as a uni-
versity, t Edward II. in the tenth year of his
reign (a.d. 1316-1317), granted a charter to the
university, confirming the charter which he had
granted before, and adding some new privileges :
at the same time he sought a confirmation of the
privileges of the university from the papal see;
and a bull was issued accordingly by John XXII.,
which is given at length by Dyer.j: It was issued
at Avignon, in the second year of his pontificate,
• " De Studio Granihrig facta est Universitas, sicut est
Oxonis, per Curiam Romanam ;" Conring. Diss. ii. s. 7? from
Arnold Wion. -f Privil. vol. i. p. 414.
X Privileges, vol. i. p. 60. The king's letter to the pope,
and the pope's bull, are registered in their proper places in
the Index to Hare's Collection, under Edward II. Nos. ] 3 and
14. But elsewhere the bull is absurdly described as a bull of
John X. and referred to the time of Edward the Elder, son of
Alfred. See Dyer, vol. i. p. 410.
100 ON THE ORIGIN OP
(1217-1218.) It mentions privileges conferrecl
by former popes as well as by former kings, and
confirms them all. It ordains that there shall be
thenceforth at Cambridge a stvdium genercUey and
that every faculty shall be maintained there ; and
that the college of masters and scholars of the said
studium shall be accounted a university, and enjoy
all rights which any university whatsoever lawfully
established can and ought to enjoy. From this
document we may learn, that those writers are
mistaken who affirm that studium or studium gene-
rale is synonymous with universitas ; and that the
technical use of the German academicians of later
times, by which a studium was distinguished from
a university only as not conferring degrees, was
equally a departure from the ancient and proper
use of the terms. Studium is a place of study.
A studium generale is a place where all branches
of learning are taught ; the very meaning which by
an erroneous etymology has been fastened on the
word university : a university is a corporation of per-
sons.* From the date of this bull Cambridge was
recognized among the universities of Christendom.
As far as our records enable us to judge, Cam-
bridge was not much troubled by papal bulls or
rescripts ; and it was singularly free from ecclesias-
tical interference at home. In all universities the
chancellor was the " fountain of honour," the officer
by whose authority degrees were conferred ; and
* So Savigny.
UNIVERSITIES. 101
this dignity gave considerable power. In France
and Italv, where schools had been attached to
collegiate churches, there was usually a member
of the college or chapter who was called schoktstt-
cus ; originally, we may suppose, the schoolmaster :
and where universities grew out of such schools,
the scholasticus not unfrequently became the chan-
cellor. Thus the chancellor of the University of
Orleans was the scholasticus of the cathedral.* The
bishop of the diocese was very often the chancellor,
especially where the university was placed in an
episcopal city ; and if not the bishop, some other
ecclesiastical dignitary. Thus we have seen that
at Paris the bishop was the chancellor of the
faculty of theology; the chancellor of St. Ge-
nevieve of the rest of the university : at Bologna,
the archdeacon was the chancellor of the lawyers,
physicians, and artistae ; the bishop, of the theolo-
gians. In the German universities the chancellor
was generally the bishop.t
In England it happened fortunately for the uni-
versities that neither Oxford nor Cambridge was a
* Savigny. About the scholastic canons^ or scholarchse,
see Conring. Diss. iii. ss. 5 and 16, and Suppl. xliii. s. 2.
*{- See a list of universities, with their chancellors, in Itter,
cap. V. s. 6. Itter, who is a protestant, and leans to the im-
perial side in disputed questions of jurisdiction, stoutly resists
the inference that universities are ecclesiastical corporations.
Conringius, who inclines to the papal side, affirms boldly —
^^ Accedit, quod omnis gradium collatio olim facta fuerit, et
104 ON THE ORIGIN OF
those at Avignon; and to this circumstance pro-
bably it owed this extension of its privileges and
independence. In 1430, Pope Martin V. who was
a great patron of universities, commissioned certain
delegates to inquire whether the university by grant
or custom were subject to the ecclesiastical juris-
diction of their chancellor, and exempt from that of
aU others; empowering his delegates, if they should
find it so, to confirm by his authority that jurisdic-
tion and exemption, which was accordingly done ;
and in 1433, Eugenius IV. issued a bull to confirm
the sentence of the delegates.*
It would seem that this exemption finally re-
lieved the university from the jurisdiction not only
of the bishop of the diocese, but of the archbishop
of the province. The Archbishop of Canterbury
visited the university in 1309, the second or third
of Edward II. ; and in the second of Henry IV. a.d.
1401, the archbishop visited the university and the
separate colleges. But these are the only exam-
ples which we find of metropolitan visitation ;f and
• See Dyer's Privil. vol. i. p. 445.
-(* Mr. Dyer shows that the former of these visitations was
undertaken by the authority of letters patent from the king
the proceedings of the latter were confirmed by act of parlia-
ment. Privil. vol. i. p. 468. Mr. Dyer's second English
Dissertation, in vol. i. and the latter part of the Latin Disser-
tation, in vol ii. are chiefly about the right of visitation. If
we understand him rightly, he seems to hold, that the right
of visitation and inspection resides in the king ; but that new
UNIVERSITIES. 105
in the reign of Edward VI. 1548 and 1549, the
university was subjected to a very thorough royal
visitation.
There is not before us such ample information
with regard to the collegiate foundations of Cam-
bridge and other houses for the residence of stu-
dents, as the Edinburgh reviewer found in Wood
about those of Oxford. The hospitia, which were
taxed according to the custom mentioned above,
might in some cases be lodgings in the houses of
the townspeople : there can be no doubt that this
was the way of living in the earliest times ; but
they were mostly separate houses, occupied only by
students. In the composition between the scholars
and the burgesses, sanctioned by royal authority in
the fifty-fourth of Henry III., it was agreed that
certain masters should be elected annually, who
should keep a list of all principals and ever}' house,
and all scholars dwelling in the said houses ; and an
oath was to be exacted from the principals, that
they would not knowingly receive in their hospitia
any disturber of the public peace. This process
implies that there was a large number of such
hospitia with their principals, and that they were
liable to fluctuation and change.*
statutes can be given, or old ones abrogated, only by the
supreme legislature.
* Dyer's Privil. vol. i. p. 66, where the composition is
given in full. The words domus and hospitium are both
108 ON THE ORIGIN OF
These elective chancellors held their office only
for a short period; at Cambridge, for two years.
The division of the scholars into nations, which
prevailed in all the universities of the Continent,
was unknown in England; probably because our
insular situation prevented the influx of foreign
students.* There was a tendency at one time at
Oxford to establish a similar distinction between
the natives of the counties north and south of
Trent. For some time the proctors were chosen,
one from each division ; but tlie schism was healed.f
At Cambridge, by the composition between the
scholars and the burgesses, in the fifty-fourth
of Henry III. conservators of the peace were to
be elected annually at the beginning of the aca-
demical year, twenty-three in number (the original
number of a jury), ten from the town, and thirteen
from the university ; and of these latter, five were
to be English, three Scotch, two Welsh, and three
Irish. This arrangement might easily have given
rise to a division of the scholars into nations, each
choosing its own conservators ; but it was not at-
tended by any such consequence.
* We have noticed this division at Paris and Bologna.
The Universities of Vicenza and Vercelli were each divided
into four nations ; M ontpelier into three ; Orleans into ten ;
Vienna into four ; and this was the most usual number.
•f* Edinb. Rev. No. cvi. p. 407« The Irish students at one
time were a marked body, and a turbulent one ; but they
never attained any distinct privileges.
UNIVERSITIES. 109
The chief peculiarity, however, which distin-
guished the English universities, was the early
estahlishment of hostels, halls, and colleges, and
the part which was taken by the principals or
heads of these establishments in maintaining the
discipline of the younger scholars. The prevalence
of collegiate foundations has continued to affect
them in every age, and their influence has con-
tinually increased. Not only have the universities,
like all other human institutions, settled in the
course of time into an arrangement very different
from their original form; but within a compara-
tively short period they have departed from those
bodies of statutes which were intended to per-
petuate their legitimate constitution; and they
have become unlike every other institution in
Europe which bears the same name. J propose
to trace these changes in the two lines in which
they have developed themselves most prominently,
— in the mode of communicating instruction, and in
the internal government of the imiversities.
It will be necessary, in the first place, to give a
slight sketch of thpse changes which were wrought
by the natural course of events in all the older
universities, and to indicate the points in which
later foundations differed from the ancient schools.
The terms master and doctor, as we had repeat-
edly occasion to caution the reader in the com-
mencement of our dissertation, were not originally
110 ON THE ORIGIN OP
titles conferred by authority after a prescribed
course of study or a formal examiuation, but were
merely appellations given according to their com-
mon meaning to persons engaged in teaching.
The term professor, though less frequent in early
times, had the same signification : it meant a
person who professed to teach any particular sub-
ject. In the Authentic of Frederic Barbarossa, so
often mentioned, the teachers of law are called
professors. When the teachers of different schools
made regulations among themselves, which were
subsequently confirmed by public authority, to
prevent unqualified persons firom assuming their
office; or when similar regulations were enforced
by the ecclesiastical dignitaries who had the charge
of such schools; the terms master, doctor, and
professor, became titles, signifying a certain rank,
and conveying certain powers in the scholastic
body; but still they were given only to persons
who were admitted by competent authority to the
office of teachers. The appellations master and
doctor were at first used synonymously; and it
was only in process of time that the name master
came to be restricted more peculiarly to the teach-
ers of the liberal arts, and the title of doctor to be
assumed as a distinction by the teachers of theo-
logy and law, and subsequently of medicine.* We
read of masters of theology at Paris, of masters of
* Itter De Grad. Acad. c. ii. 8. 6, and elsewhere.
UNlVBRSrriES. Ill
law at Bologna,* of masters of medicine at Sa-
lerno.f There is a letter addressed by Robert
Grostest, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1237, '* Magistris
Oxoniae in Theologia Regentibus :*'j: and in some
universities the title of master of theology re-
mained in use, as in those of Sweden.§ Master
was a general title ; doctor, a special : all doctors
were accounted masters, though all masters were
not doctors. The phrase '< masters and scholars,''
is the general description, or corporate name, in
which all members of the university are included,
whether at Paris, or Oxford, or Cambridge. When
the titles of doctor and master were distinguished,
and more especially when an earlier stage in the
probation was marked by the name of bachelor,
these successive designations were called steps
(gradus) or degrees. By a gradual change, which
we shall presently trace more particularly, they
ceased to imply actual teaching, and became at
last mere titles of honour.
The term professor has continued in common
language to be applied only to those who are actu-
ally engaged in teaching, or at least whose official
duty it is to teach ; for the course of time has
generated sinecure professorships. But that it was
* In the Authentic, HabitOy and elsewhere, see above, p. 49.
•f* See above, p. 67.
4: Wood, Hist, et Antiq. lib. i. p. 24 ; in Itter, c. iv. s. 22.
§ Itter. c. ii. 8S. 6, 7.
112 ON THE ORIGIN OF
originally synonymous with the other academical
degrees appears clearly from this circumstance, that
in our English universities (and possibly elsewhere)
the Latin designation of a doctor of divinity is
" sanctae theologise professor." The modern use of
the word is so different, that Itter speaks of pro-
fessors in the German universities, who had not
attained to the degree of masters, or who had even
not taken any degree at all.*
A degree, therefore, originally was a licence to
teach ; afterwards it implied an obligation to
teach. Even the bachelor was obliged to give
proof of his ability in teaching by reading a short
course of lectures under the superintendence of his
faculty.t The inceptor, or commencing master,
began of course to teach. At Cambridge, for ex-
ample, he had the last term of the academical year,
before his full creation, to make his first experi-
ment as an independent teacher. The technical
term signifying to teach in the public schools was
regere ; and the master of arts, or the doctor of
any faculty, upon his creation, necessarily became
a regent — that is, a teacher in the schools. This is
the mode in which instruction was given in the
earliest age of universities. Out of this number of
rival teachers the students made their choice ; but
* c. viii. s. 2 ; c. ix. s. 2.
•j- Edinb. Rev. No. cvi. p. 388. See above the account of
the University of Bologna, p. 61.
<^
UNIVERSITIES. 113
they were expected to attach themselves to some
one in particular, as is implied in the Authmtk of
Frederic I. and is expressly enacted in the Oxford
statute of 1231, noticed above. Of course, it was
not supposed that all who took degrees, and began
to teach, would continue teaching all their lives ;
and the more numerous they became, the less
reason was there to prolong the obligation. A
period, therefore, q^ 'necessary regency was generally
established, different in different universities, during
which the graduates were boiuid to teach, and
after which they might, if they chose, become rum-
regents. As the want of teachers was less felt,
this period was shortened by successive enact-
ments; and as many graduates were found who
were willing to devote themselves to teaching as
a profession, and to support themselves by the fees
which all teachers might collect from their pupils,
it became easy for those to whom the obligation
of teaching was a burthen, to obtain a dispensation,
even during the period of necessary regency. The
students naturally preferred experienced teachers.
We have seen how at Paris the lectures of the
regent masters in the public schools were supplant-
ed by the lectures of the regents permanently at-
tached to the great colleges. At Bologna they
were superseded by the lectures of the salaried
professors. The change at Oxford and Cambridge
appears to have proceeded more slowly. At Paris
114 ON THB ORIGIN OF
there was an impediment for want of room ; a diffi-
culty in finding schools wherein the regents might
lecture ; which was a cause of dispensations from
the duty. Oxford was better provided in this
respect in proportion to its numbers. It is said
that forty sets of schools are still known by name,
which were anciently open in School-street; and
these were buildings each containing from four
to sixteen lecture-rooms.* However, upon the
establishment of public and salaried professors, the
revolution took place in the English universities as
well as in those of the Continent. At last, a tacit
exemption was accorded to all who chose to avail
themselves of it ; and a degree ceased in general
to impose any obligation. Nevertheless, there was
nothing to debar the regent from exercising his
ancient function, and lecturing in the public schools.
A lecturer might continue to teach as a voluntary
regenty when his period of necessary regency had
expired ; or he might resume his regency at plea-
sure. At length some restrictions seem to have
been imposed ; partly by the necessity of the
case, partly from other motives. Thus, in Paris,
the masters who were desirous of lecturing peti-
tioned their faculty pro regentia et scholis ; and
* Edinb. Rev. No. cvi. p. 388, note. How it may be at
Oxford, I know not ; but Cambridge at this day has not
public lecture-rooms sufficient for the professors who are de-
sirous of lecturing.
UNIVERSITIES. 115
schools, as they fell vacant, were granted to them
by their nations in order of seniority.* At Cam-
bridge, on account of the express limitation of the
period of regency, a non-regent master could not
resume his regency without a grace of the senate ;t
and it may be assumed that a similar regulation
was in force at Oxford. At Cambridge the period
of regency was limited to five years for masters,
and to two years for doctors. The proctors and
some other officers resume their regency by virtue
of their office. At Oxford, the period of necessary
regency was finally limited to one year; but the
masters were allowed to remain voluntary regents
(regents ad placitum) for two years. Now that
the sole effect of regency is to make the master a
member of the house of congregation, all remain
regents for two years. The original signification
of the term is so far preserved, that all professors
and public lecturers, the masters of the schools,
and public examiners, are regents. All resident
doctors are regents — which was a usurpation of the
title ; and so are all heads of houses, and the deans
of colleges.
Thus the early universities, in their earliest
period, were taught by their graduates at large;
and it was only by a slow change that this practice
fell into disuse. The chief cause of its discon-
• Edinb. Rev. No. cvi. p. 388, note.
-f Stat. Eiiz. c yii.
116 ON THE ORIGIN OF
tinuance and final cessation was the general ap-
pointment of public and authorized professors and
lecturers. These were sometimes appointed by
the government, sometimes by the university it^
self: sometimes they were elected annually ; some-
times they held their offices at the pleasure of
their faculty, sometimes for life : sometimes they
were left, like other teachers, to collect fees from
their pupils ; more commonly they received a fixed
salary on condition of their teaching gratuitously :
sometimes they were paid by the government;
sometimes they owed their endowments to private
munificence. But under some or other of these
modifications this method of providing public
teachers became general in all the universities of
Europe. A detailed account of its introduction
and establishment in the several universities would
be a valuable chapter in academical history : but
this, even if my limits would allow me, I have not
the means of presenting. I have given a slight
outline of its origin and progress at Paris and
Bologna, and I shall mention presently the insti-
tutions of our own universities. At this point it is
more to our purpose to remark, that in those uni-
versities which were founded by sovereigns and
governments, after the first age of such institutions
was gone by, the business of instruction was fi'om
the beginning committed to a body of professors,
UNIVERSITIES. 117
as in almost all the universities of Germany ;* and
in those of Scotland the case was much the same.
So entirely was the right of teaching reserved to
the regular and authorized professors in the German
universities, that although in conferring degrees
the ancient formula is retained, by which the gra-
duate receives the power ^* legendij docendi, inter"
pretandi, et ghsscmdi^** and of exercising all the
functions of a professor, the German writers on
academical law are careful to explain, that this is
only a declaration of competence, not a licence to
act; and that ^^promoti doctores facultatem ha-
bent legendi, &c. si modo ad ejusmodi munus rite v(h
centurJ" t
However, in most of the German universities
there are facilities by which a graduate who wishes
it is enabled to lecture as an extraordinary or tem-
porary professor. In this way teachers are exer-
cised and trained to fill the regular chairs ; and the
ordinary professors are not left to slumber in the
secure possession of a monopoly.
* The University of Gottingen is comparatively a recent
institution ; but its form is a fair specimen of the general form
of the Oerman universities. Its constitution will be found in
the Pnvilegia Acad. Gotting. ; that is, the imperial and elec-
toral ordinances to which it owes its existence, which are ap-
pended to Heumann's edition of Conringius* Dissertations
printed at Gottingen in 1739.
j- See Itter and his authorities, cap. zvi. s. 6.
118 ON THE ORIGIN OF
The government of the ancient universities of the
Parisian model was naturally vested in their teachers.
"When regular degrees were conferred, it was the
business of the regent masters. In the early state of
the universities there was little inducement for non-
regent graduates to remain resident in them, or to
interfere in their concerns. In those universities
in which, after a time, the growth of collegiate
foundations, or other causes, induced graduates to
reside who were not actually engaged in teaching,
in the first place, the nominal regents, whose duty
as public lecturers was dispensed with, still retained
their powers as members of the governing body;
an abuse, or at least a violation of ancient custom,
which brought others in its train ; for, in the next
place, all resident doctors, though not actually
teaching, came Uo be considered as regents, and
the same privilege was extended to all heads of
colleges ; and, lastly, the resident non-regents,
whose advice in ancient times was only requested
on extraordinary occasions, came to take a part in
the ordinary government of the university. On
the other hand, in those universities in which the
business of tuition fell into the hands of a body of
authorized professors, and no motive was presented
for the continued residence of other graduates, the
government of the university fell likewise into the
hands of the professors : and in the universities
of later foundation, where the tuition is expressly
UNIVERSITIES. 119
and exclusively committed to the professors, the
government also is entrusted to them ; and the
supreme authority of the university is generally a
Senatus Acad^micus, which is the united body of
professors.
At Oxford, some time before the present statutes
were digested under the authority of Archbishop
Laud, there were, besides the professors of the su-
perior faculties, ten professors or public readers of
the seven arts and the three philosophies. They
were appointed by the house of congregation, that
is, by the regents; and attendance on their lectures
was enforced by statute. In the time of Laud,
six of these enjoyed a permanent endowment : four
were paid, partly by the fees of their pupils, partly
by fines levied on the regents whom they relieved
from teaching. After the final collection of the
statutes, A.D. 1636, by which the university is still
nominally governed, we find eleven professors or
readers in the faculty of arts. They lectured on
grammar, rhetoric, and logic, the three branches of
the ancient trivium. Of the quadrivium, geometry
and astronomy had their professors endowed by
the munificence of Sir Henry Saville, in 1619.
Provision was made by royal endowment for teach-
ing the Greek and Hebrew languages: and there
were also professors of natural and of moral philo-
sophy, of metaphysics, and of history. Music had
its professor ; but it was now separated from the
120 ON THE ORIGIN OF
faculty of arts. There were also two professors
of divinity, a professor of civil law, a professor of
medicine, and a praelector in anatomy, who minis-
tered instruction in the higher faculties.* The re-
gius professorships of Greek, Hebrew, divinity,
civil law, and medicine, were endowed by Henry
VIII. in the years 1535 and 1540. The Margaret
professorship of divinity was of older date.
Notwithstanding this array of professorships,
which were now the chief instruments by which
the university fulfilled its function as a teaching
body, the right was expressly reserved by statute
to every doctor and master of lecturing in the
public schools on any subject pertaining to his
faculty ; and the exercise of the right was still not
unusual.t It is almost unnecessary to observe,
that several professorships have been founded since
the date of the statutes.
At Cambridge, as far as we can gather from
Dyer's Privileges of the University, the earliest
professorship which appears upon record is the
professorship of divinity, founded by Lady Margaret
Countess of Richmond, mother of Henry VII. aj).
1502. The professor was to be elected by the
vice-chancellor and the graduates in divinity, and
to hold his office two years. In 1524, Sir Robert
* Edioburgh Rev. No. cvi. pp. 389-391.
*f* Corp. Stat. t. iv. s. 1 ; in Edinb. Rev. p. 392. See also
p. 390.
UNIVERSITIES. 121
Read made an endowment for three lecturers, who
are called " the three readers of ordinaries" and
who were " to read the accustomed lectures in hu-
manity (rhetoric), logic, and philosophy.** These
readers were to be elected annually,* and were " to
be chosen after the laudable custom and usage of
the university.** Whether there were public read-
ers appointed by the university before this time,
and these words refer specially to the way in
which they were elected, or whether they refer
to the general mode of electing the officers of the
university, does not clearly appear. The inten-
tion of the founder was to secure gratuitous in-
struction to the students, and he clogged his
foundation with the condition that '^no money
was to be paid for ordinaries for the future;**
but as the endowment for each reader was four
pounds per annum, the offices in no long space of
time were made sinecures. The same has been
the fate of a lectureship on mathematics, which was
soon after added to the foundation. However, in
Queen Elizabeth's statutes we find these four lec-
turers recognised as the regular and efficient in-
structors of the students of arts.f
In 1535, when Thomas Cromwell, the king's
* They are chosen on the 10th of June, the day before St.
Barnabas* day, and hence are commonly called the Bamaby
lecturers.
'I* Stat. c. iii. See also c. vi.
122 ON THE ORIGIN OP
commissioner for visiting all ecclesiastical establish-
ments, was chancellor of the university, the univer-
sity was directed by a royal injunction to found a
Greek and Latin lecture at its own expense. The
Latin lectureship became extinct, — probably from
the want of an endowment. But in 1540 the king
endowed the regius professorships of Greek and
Hebrew, of theology^ civil law, and medicine, as at
Oxford. The original endowment of these profes-
sorships was 40/. per annum, and the stipend of
the Greek and Hebrew professors has never been
in any way augmented. These are all the profes-
sorships which are recognised in the Elizabethan
statutes. The more bountiful provision of public
lecturers at Oxford was no doubt the cause of the
greater abbreviation of the period of regency. It
would seem that at Cambridge the lectures of the
regent masters must have been almost necessary to
the efficiency of the university. As there was not
more than one professor of any one subject except
divinity, and as it was expressly enacted by the sta-
tutes that all lectures on one and the same branch of
learning should be delivered at one and the same
hour,* it follows that there were other lectures be-
sides those of the professors ; and that these were
not college lectures appears from another statute to
be mentioned presently.
At the time, therefore, when the universities
* Stat. Eliz. c. iv. in fine.
UNIVERSITIES. 123
received their respective statutes, and when the
authority of the crown was last exerted in regulat-
ing their general system, the instruction which
they afforded was as wide or wider in its range
than it had ever been before, (except that lectures
and degrees in the canon law were prohibited after
the Reformation,) and in their method of commu-
nicating it they had not departed from the ancient
customs of universities further than the other great
academies of Europe. At Cambridge the profes-
sors were all strictly bound to lecture at least four
times a week ;* and the same had been the custom
at Oxford, or even daily lectures were required,
till the time of Laud's statutes, which demanded
lectures only twice a weeLf This relaxation was
a symptom of the change which was approaching^
As yet, however, at both universities, heavy pecu-
niary penalties were exacted for any negligence,
whether of teachers or pupils. For every separate
degree a continued residence in the university was
required, an assiduous attendance on the lectures
pertaining to the faculty, and a scrupulous per-
formance of the public acts or disputations, which
were still esteemed the most effectual means of
proving the attainments of the candidates, and
the most beneficial mode of guiding the studies
of others engaged in the same course, whose
* Stat. c. iii.
t Edinb. Rev. No. cvi. pp. 391, 392.
124 ON THE ORIGIN OF
presence at the disputations the statutes rigidly
enforced. Thus, at Oxford, not only were the
courses of lectures strictly determined, which the
scholar was to attend in each of the four years, be-
fore he could be admitted as a bachelor of ar^;
but the lectures to be attended in each of the three
succeeding years, before he could proceed to the
degree of master of arts, were prescribed with equal
precision.* At Cambridge, the course of the first
four years was traced out in like manner. The
lectures to be attended by bachelors of arts are also
specified, but not the order of attendance. More-
over, five public disputations are required, and
attendance on all the disputations of the masters.t
The lectures to be attended, and the exercises to
be performed, by candidates for degrees in the
superior faculties, are prescribed with the same
rigour. The Cambridge statute, with regard to
masters of arts who are proceeding to the degree
of bachelor of divinity, will serve as a specimen.
^< A master of arts shall be a sedulous hearer of
theology, and a daily hearer of the Hebrew lec-
ture; to which subjects he shall apply himself
seven years : in which time he shall dispute twice
against a bachelor of theology; once afler his
fourth year he shall respond in theology ; he shall
preach in the university church once in Latin and
once in English .... And if in this time he shall have
* £dinb. Rev. p. 391. "f Stat.£liz. oc vi. vii.
UNIVERSITIES. 125
profited in theolc^, afler seven years complete,
and not before, let him become a bachelor by solemn
inauguration."* It might seem superfluous to ob-
serve, that daily or sedulous attendance upon lec-
tures implied residence in the university, if it were
not for the ingenuity which the universities have
shown in interpreting their statutes.
The revolution which has taken place at Oxford
we shall describe in the words of the Edinburgh Re-
viewer. This description comes from an unfavour-
able observer; and I should be glad to separate
the statement of facts from the tone of accusation
in which it is conveyed, and in which I am by
no means disposed altogether to concur. But I
think it safer on the whole to borrow this account,
after guarding it by this preface, than to run the
risk of the errors which might be committed, even
in interpreting evidence, by one who has not been
a resident in the university.
" The university is in abeyance. In none of the
faculties is it supposed that the professors any
longer furnish the instruction necessary for a de-
gree. Some chairs are even nominally extinct,
where an endowment has not perpetuated the
sinecure ; and the others betray, in general, their
existence only through the calendar. If the silence
of the schools be occasionally broken by a formal
* Stat. Eliz. cap. viii. With regard to Oxford, see Edinb.
Rev. as before mentioned.
126 ON THE ORIGIN OP
lecture, or if on some popular subjects (fees being
now permitted) a short course be usually delivered,
attendance on these is not more required or ex-
pected than attendance in the music-room. For
every degree in every faculty above bachelor of
arts, standing on the books is allowed to count for
residence in the university and attendance on the
public courses; and though under these circum-
stances examinations be more imperatively neces-
sary, a real examination only exists for the elemen-
tary degree, of which residence is also a condition.
It is thus not even pretended that Oxford now sup-
plies more than the preliminary of an academical
education. Even this is not afforded by the uni-
versity> but abandoned to the colleges and halls.'* *
This description is true, in a great measure, of
Cambridge also ; but there the collapse of the uni-
versity has not been so deathlike. The picture
would have been more like some few years ago ;
but recently a spirit of life and activity has been
roused in the university. More than one professor,
whose chair had been suffered to become silent,
has broken through the prescriptive example of his
predecessors ; and others, placed in stations in
which some formal and ceremonial duties were still
performed, have exerted themselves to make their
offices efficient. Nevertheless, with two or three
exceptions, it is generally true, that the professors
* Edinb. Rev. for June 1831, No. cvi. pp. 393, 394.
UNIVERSITIES. 127
who lecture most zealously are not the professors
of subjects included in the ancient and regular
studies of the university, but of branches of learn-
ing or science of more recent growth* Attendance
on their lectures is in no way required, nor does
the university take cognizance of it. The regular
and substantial education is supposed to be given
in the colleges by the college tutors and lecturers ;
and the instruction which is gathered from the
professors is regarded as an ornamental addition.
The most popular professors are chiefly attended by
those who are characterised as non-reading men.
If we descend to particulars, we shall find that
in the faculty of arts residence is not required after
the degree of bachelor. For proceeding to a higher
degree, it is not even necessary, as at Oxford, for
the bachelor to keep his name upon the books.
He may take it off, and put it on again shortly
before he presents himself for his master's degree.
For this degree there is no examination whatso-
ever ; and the public disputations are reduced to
a mere empty form, which in most cases is omitted
with impunity.
If we look to the faculty of theology, we find
that the two degrees in arts are required as preli-
minary to a degree in theology, according to the
statutes ; but no attendance upon lectures nor any
further residence is demanded ; so that a person
may become a doctor of divinity who has spent
128 ON THE ORIGIN OP
but a few days in the university since he was ad-
mitted as a bachelor of arts. For some years
past, the two ancient professors of divinity have
not lectured regularly. The Lady Margaret's pro-
fessor, when his age enabled him to perform in any
way the duties of his office, made occasional and
rare sermons in the university church a substitute
for the lectures required by his foundation. The late
regius professor of divinity, the very learned Bishop
of Lincoln, delivered two most judicious courses of
lectures on the writings of some of the ancient
fathers of the church : but neither he nor any other
person in the university dreamed that attendance
on these lectures was necessary for a candidate for
theological degrees. A professor on a more recent
foundation, the Norrisian professor of divinity, de-
livers a regular course of lectures every year ; but
attendance on these is required, not by the univer-
sity, but by the bishops, who generally make it a
condition of ordination. They are most frequently
attended by under-graduates in their second or
third year, or by bachelors of arts, and stand in no
relation to the theological degrees. The present
Professor of Hebrew lectures regularly and zea-
lously, and in consequence of the foundation of
Hebrew scholarships, is able to collect a small class:
but these lectures also have now no connexion with
degrees in theology. The late professor of Hebrew
never came near the university. The sermons
UNIYERSITIES. 129
required from aspirants in theology are duly de-
livered. The public exercises or disputations have
become little more than a ceremony ; but it is a
ceremony performed gravely and decorously. They
are made an efficient instrument of examination
only in the case of a particular class of candidates,
who, being twenty-four years of age and already in
holy orders when they enter the university, are en»
abled by Elizabeth's statutes to proceed to the
degree of bachelor of divinity without taking de-
grees in arts ; and from whom, by the prevalent
abuse in interpreting the statutes, residence is re-
quired only for one year, although their names
must stand on the books for ten. Even these less
favoured candidates find the examination not very
searching.
In civil law and in medicine no residence is re-
quired for the doctor's degree: a bachelor pro-
ceeds to the doctorate at the proper time as a
matter of course. No residence is required for the
bachelor's degree, if the student be already a ba-
chelor of arts ; but if he desire a degree in either
of these faculties without proceeding through arts,
residence is required, not for the period determined
by statute, viz. six years, but for half the time.
The statute requires from students of civil law
an attendance of five years upon the lectures of the
professor. How entirely the statutes, and the
course of study which they direct, had fallen into
JdO ON THE ORIGIN OF
disuse, may be estimated from this circumstance,
that in 1768 the senate found it necessary to en-
act, tliat no one should be admitted to the degree
of B.C.L. without producing a certificate of his
having attended the lectures in civil law for three
terms, that is, for one year. Not many years ago
the nominal study of law was frequently chosen, as
the easiest mode of obtaining a degree, by students
whose reasoning powers did not enable them to un-
dergo the examination in arts. The present pro-
fessor has laboured to do away this kind of prefer-
ence for his faculty, and besides exacting a regular
attendance upon his lectures, and a strict perform-
ance of the public disputations, he has instituted
an examination of the candidates, and added the
stimulus of a classification in the order of merit
But I apprehend that even the learned professor
himself would admit that his pupils do not attain to
a knowledge of more than the elements of his science.
In the faculty of medicine an annual course of
lectures is delivered by the regius professor, attend-
ance on which is required from all candidates for
the degree of bachelor of medicine. It is true
that the statutes require attendance for six years,
whereas the university is now content with one ;
but, as the calendar gravely informs us that " the
present professor has instituted a course of lectures
on the principles of pathology and the practice of
physic," we may guess that the condition of the
UNIVERSITIES. 131
faculty is much improved under his auspices. The
professor likewise examines the candidates. They
are required to produce certificates of examination
by the professors of anatomy, chemistry, and bo-
tany ; and they are required to attend the lectures
of these professors, provided they deliver courses
of a certain length : but the university does not
enforce the delivery of these courses, but leaves
this important point to the discretion of the pro-
fessors. The present professors have exerted
themselves most zealously and most honourably
to give every possible advantage to the medical
students ; and I believe that the medical school
of Cambridge is as efficient a school as could be
formed in a town of moderate size, and with a very
small number of pupils. The professors have not
necessarily an official connexion with the hospital ;
but the present regius professor is a physician of
the hospital, and delivers some clinical lectures.
It appears, therefore, that in every faculty the
course of real study terminates with the first de-
gree ; and that the academical studies of the gra-
duate in theology terminate with his first degree
in arts, if he have proceeded by the regular and
usual course. The number of graduates in civil
law and medicine is very small in comparison with
the number of graduates in arts. It follows that
the education which is afforded within the pre-
cincts of the university is almost entirely a prepa-
132 ON THE ORIGIN OF
ration, either for the degree of bachelor of arts, or
for certain prizes and distinctions offered to the
competition of undergraduates or commencing ba-
chelors.
Of the two examinations through which the
student must pass before he can attain the degree
of B.A. the previous examination requires a very
moderate amount of classical knowledge, an ac-
quaintance with one of the historical books of the
New Testament in the original language, and with
Paley's Evidences of Christianity. In the final
examination, those who do not aspire to honours
are examined in Homer and Virgil, in Paley's
Evidences and Moral Philosophy, in Locke's Essay
on the Human Understanding, and in the elements
of mathematics. The candidates for honours un-
dergo an examination, which is in reality exclu-
sively mathematical, although one day is nominally
assigned to metaphysical subjects. The prizes
and distinctions, the examinations for which are
not compulsory, are for the most part to be at-
tained by superiority in classical knowledge.
The university performs the function of exa-
miner. The examinations are careful, strict, and
perfectly impartial; and they are conducted in a
very judicious manner. The highest honours con-
ferred are tests of very high attainments ; and the
standard of the ordinary degrees has been con-
siderably raised within a few years.
UNIVERSITIES. 133
But this is the only function which is fulfilled
by the university. Of course the examinations of
the university determine the general direction of
the studies of the place, and the extent to which
they are carried. In many of these (though not in
the examinations for the first degree in arts) cer-
tain professors examine by virtue of their office ;
but the imiversity does not by its proper organs,
professors or other public lecturers, afibrd the in-
struction by which students are prepared to en-
counter these examinations. This office, the office
for which the university was originally established,
it has almost entirely resigned ; and the business
of education is devolved upon the tutors of the
several colleges. It is true that the present pro-
fessor of Greek has lectured annually, and his
course is generally attended by students who aspire
to classical honours ; but, in the first place, his lec-
tures are not a means of preparation for any com-
pulsory examination of tlie university ; and, in the
second place, attendance upon them is entirely
voluntary, and the university takes no cognizance
of it. The lectures of the Plumian professor of
astronomy and experimental philosophy are attend-
ed by those who are ambitious of the highest ma-
thematical honours, as well as by gentlemen who
have already graduated, and who are engaged in
scientific investigations. With these exceptions,
the instruction which the academic youth receive
134 ON THE ORIGIN OP
is given by the college tutors and lecturers. It
seems to have been always the duty of the college
tutor to instruct his pupils; but in former times
this instruction was merely subservient to the
public teaching of the professors of the university.
The professor carried forward his hearers in a
general and regular course ; the tutor explained
the particular difficulties which occurred to indi-
viduals : his tuition, in short, was domestic and
private. How little it was intended that this do-
mestic tuition should be vicarious of the public
instruction of the professors, may be seen from the
statute which strictly forbids any domestic or
college lectures being given at the same hours as
the public lectures of the university.
It is true that the college tutors are generally
competent teachers, and sometimes very eminent
men. As the reputation of a college depends upon
the reputation of its tutors, it follows, at least
of late years, that the most able men that the
college can furnish are appointed to the office.
The larger colleges are not likely to be at a loss
for able tutors ; and in the smaller colleges it happens
not unfrequently, that if the college cannot supply
a person of sufficient eminence and ability, a gen-
tleman from another college is invited to assume
the office. It might be argued that these tutors
only exercise the function which in old times was
open to every regent : but they do not adequately
supply the place of public professors, or even of the
regents of the early age. In the iirst place, their
appointmeot is private, and depends solely upoQ
the pleasure of the master of tlie college. They
do not therefore carry with them the warrant which
is attached to the character of a professor appointed
by the common voice of the university. It is true
that the masters generally appoint the most able
members of their college; but this has not always
been the case, and private partiaiity or prejudice
may operate without public question ; and besides,
the field of choice is limited. The colleges which
sometimes find it necessary to look for tutors be-
yond their own body, are not those which can offer
high inducements to strangers. In the second
place, the lectures of the college tutors are not pub-
lic, but confined to tlie members of their own college.
In colleges of which the superintendence is divided
between two or more tutors, a pupil entered on one
ode cannot even attend the lectures of the tutor
of the other side. The tutors and college lecturers
therefore are not exposed to the observation of any
except of those over whom they exercise the fullest
The attendance, likewise, is not
IS to produce upon the pupils the
stirring effect of a public lecture. In the great
colleges. Trinity and St. John's, the numbers as-
sembled in one lecture-room are perhaps sufficiently
large to excite an honourable emulation among the
official autliority.
sufficiently
136 ON THE ORIGIN OF
pupils, and to enable them to judge with tolerable
correctness of their own relative proficiency ; but
the numbers might be much greater without detri-
ment to the individuals : and in the smaller colleges
it would be a very great benefit to the pupils, as well
as a saving of labour to their teachers, if the pupils
of several colleges were collected in the room of
one professor. If, as I have ventured to suggest,
the ancient halls should be revived, it will be a
necessary consequence that the business of instruc-
tion must be resumed by the public organs of the
university.
But the method of instruction at Cambridge has
undergone another change, and a system has been
silently and gradually introduced, which has in
some measure supplanted the college tuition, as the
college tuition supplanted the professorial instruc-
tion. The students very generally seek instruction
from private tutors, selected and paid by themselves.
This mode of private instruction is supposed to be,
and in many cases really is, subsidiary to the college
lectures : but not unfrequently a student is diligent
in his attendance on his private tutor, who is irre-
gular in his attendance in the lecture-room. Where
these private tutors receive several pupils of the
same standing, and collect them at one time, and
examine them together, they bear no distant analogy
to the primitive teachers of universities in what
may be called their vohmtary stage, before they
UNIVERSITIES. 137
received their organization and form ; and the
method of instruction appears to have revolved
through a cycle, and returned to the point from
which it started. Where private tuition is gene-
rally preferred, it may be presumed that there is
some defect in the public instruction ; but in Cam-
bridge this defect in general arises, not so much
from the insufficiency of the teachers, as from a
difficulty inherent in the very nature of mathe-
matical reasoning, which is the main study of the
place — the difficulty of carrying forward a large
number of pupils at once, where the omission of
any one step by an individual is an impediment to
his particular progress.
I believe that the University of Oxford has ex-
perienced but few symptoms of that revival which
has been manifested at Cambridge ; but even if we
suppose the universities to be equally active, it is
clear that in the business of education both have in
a great measure foregone their proper functions, and
departed widely from their legal constitution, and that
the nature of this change has been mainly determined
by the collegiate foundations. We should take too
limited a view of their influence, if we said merely
that the instruction in the faculty of arts had passed
into the hands of the tutors. Though the neglect of
the peculiar education designed in the higher facul-
ties has arisen in a great measure from the altered
circumstances of society, yet much, no doubt, is to
138 ON THE ORIGIN OF
be attributed to the habits of the student in his
earlier academical years, which lead him to regard
the public professorships as parts of an obsolete
institution, and to look for no instruction beyond
the walls of his college.
The collegiate foundations have likewise modified
the government of the universities. Their chief ef-
fect is operated in precisely the same manner in both
Oxford and Cambridge. Their ample endowments,
and the conveniences which they minister to those
who have the right and the inclination to profit by
them, retain many graduates in residence who are
neither actually nor nominally engaged in the du-
ties of academical instruction. But these graduates
have not renounced their right to take part in the
government of the university. In the ancient form
of universities, when the graduates were the teachers,
the power which was naturally vested in the teach-
ers was vested in the graduates. In universities of
more recent foundation, in which there are no endow-
ments to perpetuate the residence of graduates who
discharge no function in the academical body, the
professors who are the teachers are also the go-
vernors. In Oxford and Cambridge the professors
have never, as such, possessed any power beyond
other graduates.
In Cambridge the colleges have not in any more
direct way modified the legislative power of the
university. The senate is composed of two houses,
nUIVERSmEB.
the regent and the non-regent house, the qualifies
tiona for which have been already mentioned. I
is to be observed, with reference to the superiority
enjoyed in old times by the regents or actual
teachers, that the regent house, although it h
posed of junior members, is called the upper house.
Any member of the senate may propose a grace for
enactment. The proposition is submitted 6rEt to
thecapvt — a select council of six members including
the vice-chancellor, any one of whom can stop any
measure, — and then to the non-regent and regent
house in order. As every person is held to be a
member of the university who keeps his name
upon the college books, graduates who are not
resident may come to give their votes on special
occasions. This is certainly an abuse of the let-
ter of ancient institutions ; and such interference
in the ordinary business of the university is an
usurpation on the part of the non-resident gra-
duates. On occasions of public and pohtical in-
terest, such as the election of members of parlia-
ment, when it is desirable to ascertain the i
ments of the greatest number of educated j
tfaat can be collected, the concourse of non-resi-
dents may be viewed in a different light.
The influence of the colleges is more visible in
the appointment of the executive authorities of the
university. The office of vice-chancellor was an-
ciently open to all graduates of a certain standing ;
I
I
^
140 ON THE ORIGIN OP
but, by a reguladon of 1587, the yice-chancellor
must be the head of a coU^e, and succession ac-
cording to a regular cycle has been substituted for
the ancient mode of appointment by election. The
proctors anciently were elected by the regents;
but now, by statute, they are nominated by the
colleges in turn. The aqnU^ the singular powers
of which we have noticed, is nominally elected by
the heads of colleges and doctors from three lists
submitted by the vice-chancellor and the two
proctors ; but in practice the list of the vice-chan-
cellor is generally adopted. The heads have also
great power in the appointment of several pro-
fessors, either by immediate election, or by pre-
vious nomination. When summoned by the vice-
chancellor, they constitute a court of discipline,
— an office which is more within their proper
functions.
The constitution of Oxford has been much more
completely changed by the undue preponderance
of the collegiate foundations. The house of con-
gregation is composed of the regents — (the Ox-
ford qualifications for regency have been described
above, p. 115); the house of convocation, of the
regents and non-regents together. Anciently all
business was submitted for the previous discussion
of the house of congregation; and measures ap-
proved there, were then laid before the house of
convocation. This free and salutary constitution
UNIVERSITIES. 141
was broken up by the Earl of Leicester, who com-
pelled the regents to surrender their right of pre-
vious discussion, and transferred it to what would
seem a more venerable body, composed of the
vice-chancellor, the proctors, the heads of houses,
and all doctors ;* thus excluding, together with the
youthful regents, the professors and public lec-
turers of the university. Laud excluded the doc-
tors, and constituted the hebdomadal meeting of
the vice-chancellor and other heads of colleges and
halls, and of the two proctors. This body meets
weekly, as its name implies ; and from possessing
the right of previous deliberation upon all business
to be submitted to the university, it has in fact
usurped the initiative power, and no measure is
proposed to the university which does not emanate
from the hebdomadal meeting. All its propositions
are promulgated, according to ancient form, in the
house of congregation ; but the acceptance or re-
jection of them depends upon the votes of the
house of convocation. Nothing is left to the dis-
posal of the house of congregation but the routine
business of passing dispensations and conferring
degrees. The vice-chancellor singly, and the two
proctors jointly, possess a prohibitive voice upon
all measures ; but the constitution of the hebdo-
madal meeting has made this [urerogative obsolete.f
The power of the colleges in the appointment of
* Wood, An. 1569. f ^^in. Rev. No. cvi. pp. 413, 414.
142 ON THE ORIGIN OF
the officers and dignitaries of the university is
much the same as at Cambridge.
It will be observed that I have made frequent
use of the authority of the writer of a learned
article in the Edinburgh Review for June 1831, on
the Universities of England, and specially on Ox-
ford ; but I trust that it will be observed also
that we are actuated by very different motives.
The writer in the Review denounces every de-
parture of the university from its statutable form
as a corruption and abuse, and stigmatizes the col-
legiate heads, under whose influence the change
which he describes was gradually wrought, with
the guilt of perjury, fraud, and wilful betrayal
of trust. I, on the other hand, am willing to
admit that much of the change is due to the
altered circiunstances of society, and was operated
by a force to which the universities might have
yielded in a different way, but which they could
not altogether resist: and though in some points
I should be glad to see their ancient constitution
restored, with such modifications only as the state
of society may manifestly require, yet in other
points, and especially in the examinations for the
first degree, it is impossible to deny that most
essential and vital improvements have been effect-
ed. And least . of all do I desire to sit in judg-
ment upon those under whose authority the re-
volution was effected. My purpose is altoge-
mnVERSlTIBS.
143
ther different. I wish merely to show that the
English univerBities in their present state are very
different from their original form — very differ-
ent from the form in which they were ultimately
established by their statutes — and very different
from all other universities in Europe; and hence
to refute the argument which has been too hastily
drawn, that the University of London Ib not
composed of the essential elements of a university,
and is not of the form of a legitimate university,
merely because it differs from the present form of
Oxford and Cambridge.
If I am not mistaken, it appears from the fore-
going sketch, that the University of London, in its
actual state, as a voluntary association of teachers
and learners, with its plan of self-government and
internal discipline, is a counterpart of the most
ancient universities in their early stage ; and
that it differs from them only in this point, that
whereas the teachers of the early universities were
obliged to find for themselves such scanty and in-
sufficient accommodation as they could, for the
University of London a spacious and convenient
building (besides libraries and museums) has been
provided by the munificence of founders, who retain
a voice in the disposal of its property. Even if of
its own authority it should confer titles of honour
nn its successful students, it would only be follow-
ing the example of the earliest universities ; and it
I
144 ON THB ORIGIN OP
might trust to their bong at length umilarlj r&>
cogoixed by society and the state. But if it should
be incorporated by puUic authority, and its tuition
and discipline legaUy committed to the body of
professors, it would then resemble in aU its most
important features the universities of Scotland and
Germany, and those of Italy in their present form.
The only point in which it would differ from simi*
lar institutions is this, — that in other cases, where an
endowment has been bestowed by the private mu^
nificence of princes or nobles, a power oi visitation
and control has been reserved to the founders and
their heirs for ever : in the University of Liondon a
similar power is vested in a numerous body, who,
although they are called proprietors, are in reality
the founders and endowers of this seat of learning.
The reader who is conversant only with Oxford
and Cambridge will be able to form a more compre-
hensive notion of academical establishments, if he
will consider the origin and changes and actual
state of the Scottish universities. With regard to
these we have full information in the Report of the
Royal Commission of Enquiry into the State of the
Universities of Scotland, printed by order of the
House of Commons in 1831.
In the three most ancient places of study, St.
Andrew's, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, the original
universities have been superseded by colleges.
But there is a very great difference between the
original foundations of these colleges and those of
the colleges in Oxford and Cambridge, and a very
great difference in their operation upon t'
sities. In England, the college endowments pro-
vided for the maintenance of a number of gradu-
ates, under the name of fellows, who were not in
any way engaged in the public teaching of the
university. It was indeed the general i
the founders that the fellowships should be a pro-
vision for students in theology— or, ii
in the other faculties ; but as they were tenable for
life, the majority of the fellows at all times must
have ceased to be students ; and as the statutes
are satisfied by the fellows' entering into holy
orders, or proceeding to a higher degree, which
has long become a mere formality, none of them
now can be considered as students. In the univer-
sity, therefore, they are, as fellows, neither teachers
nor learners. The tuition within the colleges was
originally domestic or private, and not of the same
kind as the public teaching of the university pro-
fessors ; and now that it has approached more
nearly to it in kind, it is still restricted in each case
to the members of the particular college. Each
college and hall, of the twenty-four at Oxford and
the seventeen at Cambridge, has separately supplant-
ed the university, so far as the education of its own
pupils is concerned. In the Scottish universities,
the colleges were endowed for the habitation and
146 ON THE ORIGIN OF
maintenance of r^ents or professors, who taught
the university at large. There were in all cases en-
dowments for a small number of poor scholars, stu-
dents in arts and philosophy; and sometimes for a few
graduates in arts, who were students of theology.
But these latter endowments could be held only
for a short period, so that they never assumed the
character of the English fellowships ; and the only
permanent and governing members of the colleges
were the regents or professors. From the small
number and the general poverty of the students
who resorted to the universities, the ordinary gra-
duates, who might, as in other universities, have
lectured and taken fees from their pupils, found
little temptation to engage in so unprofitable an
employment ; and the whole business of teaching
and the government of the students were speedily
left in the hands of the salaried professors of the
colleges. Indeed, in each university it seems to
have been felt almost from the beginning that a
stipend was necessary to secure teachers ; and this
was the chief motive for the collegiate foundations.
Thus, at Oxford and Cambridge, establishments
different from the university have stepped into the
place of the university. In Scotland, certain parts
of the university have become the whole university
by the voluntary renunciation and disappearance
of the rest. The consequence is, that in modern
times, and for many years past, the distinction be-
UNIVERSITIES.
obliterated ^^M
■e used sy- ^H
tfreen university and college has been
and almost forgotten, and the words are used sy-
nonymously even in public documents. The royal
com mission era, although they are aware of the
difference, and in many passages of their report
draw the distinction rightly, yet in other passages
not only confound the terms, but have been be-
trayed into the vulgar confusion of ideas. This
renders their sketches of the early history of these
institutions somewhat less clear than they might
have been ; but vre shall be able to present such a
brief view as is necessary for our purpose.
The University of St. Andrew's was founded by
Henry Wardlaw, bishop of the diocese, in 1411.
The king, James I. of Scotland, the bishop, and the
heads of the Augustinian priory at St. Andrew's,
requested the papal sanction ; and accordingly a
bull was issued in 1413, by Benedict XIII. by
which it was made a university, and a general
study for all the faculties. It received otlier bene-
factions from the church, which were ratified by
the Icing in 14S3 ; and he at the same time granted
to all its members an exemption from taxes,^a
privilege confirmed by his successors.
The bishop of the see was always chancellor of
the university. All the members, whether students
or graduates, were distributed into four nations.
The rector of the university was chosen by the
votes of the nations: probably in old times he
I
148 ON THB ORIGIN OF
was elected immediately by them. According to
the present custom, each nation elects an intrant ;
and these intrants are not merely the vehicles of
the votes oi the nations, as at Glasgow, but inde-
pendent electors ; and if the votes of the intrants
be equally divided, the preceding rector has a
casting vote. The office of rector by the foun-
dation charter was open to all graduates. By
subsequent statute, there are only four persons
eligible. The rector, with the advice of his
assessors, now nominated by himself, is still the
supreme authority of the university, and over the
students has the power of expulsion. There is a
dean of the faculty of arts, the only faculty which
in early times flourished in the university. We
may conclude by analogy that he was originally
elected by all the graduates of arts. He is now
elected annually by the principal and professors of
the united college.
The University of St, Andrew's suflPered great
inconvenience during the first twenty years of its
existence from the want of public buildings; and
its schools were held in the religious houses. In
1430, a pcedagogium was built for the schools of
the faculties of arts, and even, it is said, for cham-
bers for students of that faculty ; but the schools
of the faculties of theology and law were provided
as before. The congregations of the university
UNIVERSITIES. 149
were held for at least one hundred and thirty years
in the Augustinian priory.*
James Kennedy, bishop of the see, founded the
college of St. Salvator, which was confirmed by the
king, and by the Popes Nicolas V. and Pius II. in
1455 and 1458. It was endowed for three gra-
duates in theology; a inaster in theology, who was
to be provost ; a licentiate, and a bachelor, each of
whom was to lecture ; four clerical masters of arts,
two of whom were to be annually nominated by
the theological professors as regents or lecturers ;
and six poor scholars, students of philosophy. The
provost or principal had the chief authority within
the college ; but the rector of the university was
its official visitor, and, with the advice of his four
assessors, might correct all abuses, whether in the
head or the members. About 1468, Pope Paul II.
granted by bull to the college the power of confer*
ring degrees in theology and arts ; and by this
anomalous grant erected, in fact, a university within
the university.
In 1512, Alexander Stuart, archbishop of St
Andrew's, and John Hepburn, prior of the cathe-
dral, founded St. Leonard's college, which was
confirmed by royal charter. It was endowed for
a principal master, who was always to be nomi-
nated by the prior out of the canons of the chapter,
* Report, p. 214.
150 ON THB ORIGIN OF
and who was to be the professor of divinity; for
four chaplains, two of whom were to be regents,
as at St. Salvator's; six graduates of arts, who
were to be diligent students of theology ; and
twenty scholars, students of philosophy. All elec-
tions were reserved to the principal and the prior ;
and a commission of annual visitation was ap-
pointed.
St Mary's college was founded in 1587, by Arch-
bishop James Beatoun, and confirmed by Paul III.
It was founded for all the faculties, and empowered
to confer degrees in them; thus presenting the
same anomaly as St Salvator's. In 1553, Arch-
bishop Hamilton, with the sanction of a papal bull,
gave a new constitution to the college. It was to
consist of a prsefect, or principal, who was to be a
doctor or licentiate in theology ; of two other pro-
fessors of theology, one a licentiate, the other a
bachelor; of a professor of the canon law; of
eight clerical students of theology, who were not
only diligently to attend the theological lectures,
but also to lecture themselves, and whose appoint-
ments were tenable for six years ; of five regents,
masters of arts, — that is, three professors of philo-
sophy, one of rhetoric, and one of grammar ; and
of sixteen poor scholars, students of philosophy ;
besides certain college servants. A voice was
given to the rector of the university in the elec-
tion of the praefect and the chief professors of
milVBRSITIES. 151
the college; and the rector was empowered to
visit the college annually. We perceive, therefore,
that here, as at St. Salvator's, the supremacy of
the original university was maintained. In all
these foundations lodgings were provided for all
the memhers within the college buildings : they
were required to take their meals in common, and
to wear an academical dress.
The colleges remained without further change
tilt the period of the Reformation, except that a
professor of humanity was added to each of the
colleges of St. Salvator and St. Leonard, answering
to the grammatical professor at St. Mary's. In
1579 their constitutions were entirely changed by
the king and parliament, at the instance of the
general assembly of the church, St. Mary's, with
five masters, was made a theological school only ;
and St. Salvator's and St. Leonard's were restricted
to humanity and philosophy, each with a principal
and four professors. But in 1621 the regulations
of the original foundations were restored, except
that St. Mary's was still to remain exclusively a
theological school. It appears that in practice
the other colleges continued to be schools of arts.
Professorships of mathematics and of medicine
were added in 1G68 and 1721.
An important change was made in 1747, which
was conceived and carried into effect with great
judgment. St. Salvator's and Sl Leonard's, find-
I
152 ON THB ORIGIN OP
ing their sejparate revenues insufficient for the
maintenance of their professors, united thams^es
into one college. By this union they were enabled,
where there were duplicate offices, to retrench one
of them, and either to consolidate the endowments,
or to provide instruction in some new branch of
learning. The united college consists of a prin-
cipal and eight professors, all of whom, with the
exception perhaps of the professor of medidne,
may be considered as belonging to a faculty of
arts. The medical professor lectures on chemis-
try and chemical pharmacy. St. Mary's college
remains distinct, and consists of the principal, and
three professors, of divinity, of church history, and
Hebrew.
The two principals and the professors now con-
stitute the whole senatus acadendcus, which is the
governing body of the university* Since the aboli-
tion of episcopacy, they elect their chancellor. We
have described the mode of electing the rector,
who must be one of the two principals, or one of
the professors of divinity and ecclesiastical history.
The colleges in their present form bear a re-
semblance to the colleges of the faculties at Bo-
logna. The members have long ceased to live
in common. The bursaries still exist, that is,
stipends are paid to certain poor scholars ; but
they have no longer chambers in the college build-
ings, nor live at any college table. The profes-
UNIVERSITIES. 153
sors of the united college now receive fees from
their pupils ; but the professors of St. Mary's have
no remuneration but their salaries by endowment,
and a small grant of public money. In all the
Scotch universities the theological professors ab-
stain from taking fees.
The University of Glasgow was established in
1450, by a bull of Pope Nicolas V. issued at the re-
quest of James II. Authority was given for the in-
stitution of a general study for all faculties, and the
university was empowered to grant degrees which
should be valid throughout Christendom. The mem-
bers of it were endowed with " all the liberties, im-
munities, and honours enjoyed by the masters, doc-
tors, and students of the University of Bologna."
The effect of this bull was to make the constitution
of the university the same as that of Bologna, so far
as circumstances would allow. In 1453 a royal char-
ter was granted by James II. with an exemption
from taxes and all civil burthens ; and certain local
privileges, of a similar nature, by the bishop of the
diocese.
The Archbishop of Glasgow was the chancellor
of the university, and by His authority all its ho-
nours were to be conferred. The supposts, a term
which included all the members of the university,
whether scholars or graduates, were distributed
into four nations. The constitution of Bologna was
imitated in the distinguishing character in which it
154 ON THB ORIGIN OF
differed from the Parisian model : the supreme
power of the miiversity was vested in the assembly
of all its members, — that is, of all the scholars who
had been matriculated, and whose names remained
upon the album. In these general meetings, called
comitiay or congregations, the statutes were enacted,
amended, or repealed. Each nation had its procu-
rator, whom it elected annually; and the procurators
were officers of considerable trust and power. The
rector, likewise, was elected by the supposts assem-
bled in their nations ; and this mode of appoint-
ment is still in use. Four deputes were elected at
the same time, like the four assessors at St. An-
drew's, to form the council of the rector. The rec-
tor, acting with the advice of the deputes, exercised
supreme judicial and executive power over all the
members of the university : he was invested with
jurisdiction in all civil cases, and in lighter crimi-
nal causes, in which any suppost was concerned ;
graver offences were reserved for the jurisdiction
of the bishop. According to the privilege granted
to the scholars of Bologna by the Authentic of the
Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, the supposts had the
option of bringing their causes before the rector or
the bishop : the magistrates of the town took a
yearly oath to observe and defend the privileges of
the university. In 1461 an ecclesiastical jurisdic-
tion was conceded by the bishop to the rector ; a
PNlVERSmES. 165
which implies that the rector was always
to be a person in holy orders.
The university was entirely unendowed, and des-
titute of public buildings. Its meetings were held
in the chapter-house of the Black Friars, or in the
cathedral. The teachers obtained schools for their
lectures in the religious houses. One of the very
earliest entries in the archives of the faculty of arts
is a payment for repairs of a school in the monas-
tery of the Black Friars. The students lodged in
the houses of the citizens. It was regulated, as at
Bologaa, Paris, and Cambridge, that lodgings should
be let according to the arbitration of certain sworn
umpires, consisting of an equal number of supposts
and citizens; and no student was to be disturbed
in the possession of his lodgings so long as he paid
his rent, and lived in an orderly manner.
Some efforts were made soon after the erectiou
of the university to teach the civil and canon law,
and we find mention occasionally of professors of
theology ; but till the Reformation there seems to
have been no regular course of instruction except
in the faculty of arts. This faculty assumed a
regular form under its proper dean, and had its
peculiar statutes. Its archives are preserved
from the very commencement of the uoiversily,
beginning with the year 1451. The title prefixed
to them is, " Annales Collegii PacuttatM Artium in
156 ON THB ORIGIN OP
Universitate Glasguensi." If this title is as old
as the records themselves, the corporate faculty
called itself a college; and possibly the college
afler a time became a select body, which assumed
the govenunent of the whole faculty, like the col-
leges of faculties at Bologna. The exact imitation
of all the customs of Bologna makes this suppo-
sition probable. At all events, at that early period
the term college had no reference to a building
for common habitation, or an endowment for com-
mon maintenance.
The faculty, as we have mentioned, had its first
school in the house of the Black Friars. In 1458
it appears to have undertaken the building of a
pcedagogium, at the expense of its common purse :
but this design was set aside by the munificence
of the first Lord Hamilton, who conveyed to the
principal regent and other regents in trust, for the
use of the faculty, certain buildings in the High
Street of Glasgow, and some land in the neigh-
bourhood. The body thus endowed he called his
college, and ordained the commemoration of him-
self and his wife as the founders.
In this state the university remained for about
a hundred years. By this time it appears, from
the language of certain grants, that the university
and the college of the faculty of arts were con-
founded in common parlance. Two years before
the Reformation, in 1557, Archbishop James Bea-
UNIVERSITIES. 157
toun conveyed an ecclesiastical benefice to the
puBdagogium or university of Glasgow, and to the
masters and regents in the same. Though the
paedagogium was mentioned, it is manifest that
this was a gifl to the whole university, and not to
the exclusive college; for the principal was re-
strained from granting leases of the property with-
out the leave of the rector and dean of faculty,
and of the other masters, as well as the regents.
In 1563, Queen Mary gave lands and other pro-
perty for the benefit of the college and university,
and specially for the maintenance of five bursars.
The grant recites, *' that a college and university
was devised to be had in the city of Glasgow;
but that part of the schools and chambers being
built, the rest, as well dwellings as provisions for
the poor bursars and masters to teach, ceased;
so that the same appeared rather to be the decay
of a university, than to be reckoned an established
foundation."
Hitherto the form oi the college had been de-
termined only by its own regulations, or the enact-
ments of the faculty at large. In 1572 the magis-
trates of the town conveyed to the college certain
church property which had been granted to them,
but at the same time made a special foundation ;
and this endowment and foundation were confirmed
by act of parliament. In 1577, James VI. added
largely to the endowments, and erected the college
158 ON THB ORIGIN OF
anew. The charter then granted is the basis of the
present constitution. The college was to consist
of the principal, three permanent regents, four poor
scholars, a house steward and other servants. The
principal was to be nominated by the crown : but if
the crown neglected to appoint within thirty days,
the nomination devolved upon the chancellor, rec-
tor, dean of faculty, and the ministers of Glasgow
and four other places. The rector, the dean of
faculty, and the principal were to elect the regents.
The same officers had a visitorial power over the
regents, and might remove them. On the other
hand, the rector, the dean of faculty, and the
regents, might visit and admonish the principal;
but he could be removed only by those electors
to whom the right of appointment lapsed in case
of failure by the crown. The rector, the dean of
faculty, and the minister of Glasgow, were to in-
spect and audit the college accounts every quarter,
and to direct the application of the surplus re-
venues for the benefit of the college. It is manifest
that the intention of the charter was to place the
college under the effectual superintendence of the
university. A few years afterwards, an additional
endowment was given by the archbishop, by which
a fourth regent was supported, who was professor
of GreeL About ther same time statutes were
given by royal authority, which regulate both the
university and college.
WWlVEBSlTfES. io9
A commission of visitation, appoioted by the
general assembly of the cliurch of Scotland in
1639, and renewed in subsequent years, recognised
the existence of a professorahip of humanity, and
instituted two proiessora of theology besides the
principal. It appears that a professorship of medi-
cine existed at that time.
In 1727 a royal visitation made several import-
ant regulations ; and especially, it sanctioned cer-
tain powers which had been assumed by the fa-
culty meetings in contradiction to the statutes,
and which by this time had passed into usages.
As the meetings of the faculty were now composed
only of the professors, this interpretation tended to
give the college greater power of self-government,
and to remove it from the control of the ofticera of
the university.
The rights of the college and the university
were submitted to tlie adjudication of the court of
session in the years 1771 and 1772. The court
declared, that the property and revenues of the
college belonged to the principal and masters, and
that the university court of the rector and his
assessors had no power over them. This de-
termination was in conformity with the charter,
except that the rights of the foundation bursars
and servants seemed to be overlooked. At the
same time it fully recognised, according to the
charter, the right of the rector, the dean of faculty,
160 ON TUB ORIGIN OF
and the mlDister of Glasgow, to audit the coU^
accounts, and to direct the expenditure ci the
surplus revenue. It recognised the visitorial power
of the rector and the dean of ^ulty ; but, in con-
tradiction to the express terms of the charter, it de-
clared the concurrence of the professors as well as
the principal to be necessary for the censure of
any professor. In like contradiction, it determined
the right of election to the professorships, which the
charter entrusted to the rector, the dean of faculty,
and the principal, to be in the rector, the dean,
and the faculty meeting, — that is, the professors
themselves ; and, in fact, gave the chief power to
the faculty meeting, so that they might proceed
to election without the presence of the two chief
officers of the imiversity. The faculty meeting
was defined according to the statutes of 1727.
The college profited by this determination of the
right of election ; but the right of visitation in
respect of its pecuniary afiairs and other matters,
though thus fully recognised, has never been
exerted.
There seems to have been a constant tendency
on the part of the college from the time of its
foundation to withdraw itself from external autho-
rity and superintendence. After the abolition of
episcopacy, lay chancellors were appointed by the
king ; but by the new statutes an oath was pre-
scribed to the chancellor, in which a clause was
DNIVEKSITIES, 161
inserted debarring him from making any change
in the university without the consent of its chief
officers and the masters (that is, in practice, the
regents of the college). In 1642 advantage was
taken of the weak state of the royal prerogative to
elect a chancellor; and the oifice has continued
elective ever since. The principal of the college
is usually nominated as vice-chancellor. The rec-
tor anciently was necessarily an ecclesiastical per-
son, and the same practice continued after the
Reformation. The first lay rector was elected in
1630 ; but a minister was more frequently appoint'
ed, till, in 1717, a commission of royal visitation
made the wholesome regulation that the rector
should hold no other ofRce in the university, but at
the same time enacted that no minister should be
elected. The most certain mode of securing the
personal performaoce of tlie duties of the office
would have been to elect a minister of a neigh-
bouring parish. Now it has become the custom
to elect persons of rank who are non-resident ;
and a vice-rector is deputed, trho is generally a
professor. Tlie dean of faculty is elected by the
senate ; and they generally elect a non-resident
person. The power of visitation has thus become
obsolete ; and even the inspection of the college
accounts is performed very irregularly. At the
date of the report of the last commission, the
162 ox tVK OUGDI OP
princqn] of the ooDege was himMlf minister of
Hie distiDctian betw e en the muTera i ty and the
college was finall j drawn in a smt whic^ arose in
1807, out of the intdtntion bj royal mandate of a
profetsorship of natural history in the university,
and the appointment of Mr. Muirbead to the office.
Mr. Moirhead daimed a right to participate in a]l
die powers and priTfl^es of the fiunilty, and to be
a member of die coDege. The collie denied the
right of the crown to add to their corporation with-
out their consent. The court of session adjudged,
that Mr. Muirhead was a professor of the Uni-
rersity of Glasgow, and endded to vote in the
comitia and the senate; but that he was not a
member of the college, and not entided to partici-
pate in the enjojrment of its property, nor to vote
in meetings of the &culty, nor in any meetings of
the principal and masters. The report of the late
commission of visitation impugns this judgment,
and proceeds to argue against the pretensions of
the college, on the ground that professorships in-
stituted since the original charter have been con-
sidered as pertaining to the college, and especially
that the professor of astronomy, appointed in 1760,
was allowed to be a member of the faculty and
college.
As the college is a royal foundation, and has
always been subject to royal visitation and control,
I'NIVEHSITIES.
the assertion that the crown cannot add to its cor-
poration seems indeed absurd and untenable ; but
the court of session was not the less right in de-
termining that an appointment to
in the universit)' did not of itself convey incor-
poration with the college. The determination that
the new professor was not a member of the faculty,
by which a distinction was made for the first time
between the faculty — that is, tiie college of the fa-
ctdb/ — and the whole body of actual teachers, seems
much more questionable : but as it depends upon
the acts of the royal commission of visitation in
1727, by which faculty meetings were defined, and
which are not given in the report, I cannot give
a decided opinion upon it. Whether the professor
of astronomy was allowed by error to become a
member of the college, or whether the college waa
expressly mentioned in the institution of the pro-
fessorship, does not appear in the report
None of the parties to this suit, not even those
who ought to have been best informed, seem to
bave understood their true position. Immediately
■after its commencement, the lord advocate was
elected rector of the university, and conceived
himself obliged to appear in the anomalous predica-
ment of opposing the claim which Mr. Muirhead
rested upon a grant from the crown, fint the op-
position was solely on the part of the college, of
which the rector is not a member. He has con-
I
164 ON THB ORIGIN OP
trol over it as a visitor, but is in no way bound
to uphold its privileges, and least of all against
another member of the university.
Since this decision, four other r^us professors
have been added to the university, for classes ci
surgery, midwifery, chemistry, and botany; and
restrictions have been introduced in their appoint-
ments, which were intended to be in conformity with
the judgment of the court of session. — 1. They
are not to participate in the fends or privil^es
of the college. The crown thus declines inter-
ference with the existing corporation.* — 2. They
are to have no vote in the election ci a professor.
This point depends upon the powers and constitu-
tion of the faculty meeting. The decisions of the
court of session, by which the right of election,
instead of being confined to the rector, dean, and
principal, was extended to the faculty meeting, and
by which the faculty meeting was limited to the
members of the college, are both of questionable
validity. — 3. They are to take no part in the ex-
amination of candidates for medical degrees, nor
receive any part of the fees paid for them.* This
is an absurd restriction, and proceeds upon the in-
veterate misapprehension and confesion of the pro-
* The main object of the restriction is p<Hnted out in the
last clause. These professors have been invited by the college,
to examine, and as members of the senate they assist in the
ceremony of conferring the degrees.
UKirERBITIBB. V65
vinces of tlie college and the univerBity. The
college never had the power of granting degrees ;
they are conferred by the university, and all the
members of the academical senate ought to take
part in bestowing them.
Under the present practical constitution of the
university and college, the coinitia, or general con-
gregations of the university, are held only for the
election of the rector, and for some other public
and formal acts. The government of the university
is administered by the senatus academicus, which
consists of the rector and the dean of faculty, who
are seldom present, the principal and thirteen pro-
fessors of the college, and the five regius professors
of the university. The affairs of the college are
administered by the faculty meeting, which is com-
posed of the principal and college professors. The
ordinary academical discipline is managed by a
court composed of the principal and the five pro-
fessors whose chairs are of oldest foundation. This
is a matter of usage, which seems to have arisen
from a reluctance, like that manifested in the case
of Mr. Muirhead, to allow new professors to share
the powers of the older members of the corpora-
tion. However, the arrangement is convenient,
inasmuch as the classes of these professors are
those which are most frequented by the younger
pupils.
Tlie studentA of these same classes wear an aca-
166 ON THE ORIGIN OF
demic dress: the bursars receive their stipends,
but neither lodge nor board within the college.
The University of Old Aberdeen was founded in
1494, according to the models of Paris and Bologna.
The example of Paris seems to have been mainly
followed. The supposts were divided into four
nations, who seem to have elected their procura-
tors ; but they took no further part in elections, or
in the government of the university, the procurators
acting as their representatives. The turbulence
incident to the general congregations of Bologna
and Glasgow was thus avoided. The college was
founded in 1505, and new-modelled in 1531. In
its constitution it closely resembled the colleges of
St. Andrew's and Glasgow, especially St. Mary's
college at St. Andrew's. The relation between the
college and the university is distinctly marked in
the foundation charter, in which it is recommended
that the permanent and higher offices of the college
should be supplied from tlie inferior members of
it, if they be qualified ; if not, from members of the
University of Aberdeen ; and if none of them be
qualified, from members of other universities. The
rector and his assessors were empowered to visit
the college annually. As elsewhere, however, the
university has disappeared, except the incorporated
and endowed college. The college is as extensive
as the university ; or rather, the university is limited
to the extent of the college ; nor is any distinction
DNIVBHSITIBB. 167
preserved, as at Glasgow. The university and col-
lege are governed by tlie senatus academicus.
Marischal college in New Aberdeen, which claims
to be a separate university, was founded in 1593.
Jt was a college from the beginning, with endow-
ments for certain memberB. The founder, William
Earl Marischal, directed the principal to confer the
degree of master of arts upon students who de-
served it ; and as the deed of foundation has been
confirmed by more than one act of parliament,
the college is an authorised university. It now
confers degrees in all the faculties-^by what autho-
rity is not stated : probably the clause in the first
act of confirmation, which grants to it all Hberties
which are known to pertain to any college within
the realm, was supposed to warrant this practice.
It is likely that coUege was taken at that time aa
synonymous with vniversity : or if the power of
granting degrees, bestowed by the popes on the
colleges of St. Salvator and St. Mary at St. An-
drew's, was recognised in law and practice, the
literal interpretation of the statute would convey
the right.
The College or University of Edinburgh deserves
particular notice, for its celebrity as a place of
education, and for its singular constitution. In
1582, James VI. empowered the provost and town-
council of Edinburgh to repair and build houses
for the reception and habitation of professors of all
163 ON THE ORIGIN OF
the faculties and of cmy other liberal sciences, and
schools for teaching the students. The council is
invested with the right of appointing the professors,
'< wUk the advice of the mmigters" and with the right
of removing them if it sees cause. The town-
council proceeded to act upon this licence, and
opened an academy, at first under a single regent,
augmenting the number of teachers from time to
time, according to the increase in the number of
students. In 1584 the king granted property, not
to the college, but to the magistrates and town-
council for the benefit of the college; and in 1612
he gave a charter confirming all that they had
done. In 1621 an act of parliament was passed,
ratifying the royal endowments and the erection of
the college as a college for the profession of theo-
logy, philosophy, and humanity, and granting << in
favour of the burgh of Edinburgh, patron of the
said college, and of the regents and students in the
same, all liberties and privileges pertaining to any
college within the realm." It is probably on this
authority that it confers degrees.
The college is in every respect subject to the.
magistrates and town-council. No constitution
was given to it like those of other universities. It
has no chancellor. A rector is not named in the
early deeds or charters, or the act of confirmation,
in such a way as to be distinguished from the prin-
cipal of the college. Rectors were nominated occa-
UNIVERSITIES. 16ft
sionaily by the council, but not regularly, till, in ihe
year 1640, they resolved to elect a rector annually,
with six assessors, — two of the council, two minis-
ters, and two members of the college. But in the
beginning of the next century the office of rector
was permanently annexed to that of lord provost;
and as the provost, as the head and organ of the
council, had already all the authority which could
be deputed to the rector, the office has becomft.
The town council are the absolute patrons of the.
professorships of their own institution, and of the
office of principal The clause in the original
charter, which directs them to elect " with the,
advice ot the ministers, ' is ineffectual as a legal ob-
ligation. They generally request such advice for
their private guidance in the appointment of a pro-
fessor of divinity. The college consists at present
of twenty-six professors, of whom twelve are ap.o
pointed by the town-council, and eight by the
crown. The professor of botany holds commissions
from both, and in fact unites two professorships in
his own person. The appointments to the remain-
ing five are of a mixed nature, but the lown-couocil
has a voice in all. The senatus academicus con-
sists of the principal and all the professors. This
body is not legally constituted by any of the ori-
ginal deeds, but takes upon itself to act only by
usage. The pretensions of the senatus to act with
I
I
170 ON THE ORIGIN OF
an iudependent authority were brought to a legal
decision in 1825 and 1826, when the court of
session determined, that the sole government of
the university in all points, even in regulating the
conditions of graduation, the course of study, and
method of instruction, is vested in the town-coun-
cil. Nevertheless, the senate has been accustomed
from time to time to make regulations in minor
matters, and especially in points connected with
education, for the guidance of the professors and
students : and these are considered as valid, unless
they are disallowed by the council ; but the coun-
cil can rescind them at any time. There is no
legal establishment of faculties. In early times the
whole body of teachers was called " the faculty,"
the professors then probably all belonging to the
faculty of arts. Afterwards the faculty of arts
and the faculty of theology were distinguished by
usage; and faculties of law and medicine have
assumed a form more recently. There are some
professorships not assigned to any faculty. The
distribution of the professorships into faculties de-
pends either upon the faculties themselves, or the
senate, to which they are altogether subordinate.
The faculties hold meetings, especially on matters
of graduation; but they merely prepare business
for the senate, without the sanction of which none
of their propositions have any force. The principal
VNlVERSiTIES. 171
convenes the faculty of theology: the other fa-
culties elect their own deans or conveners.
By the entire subjection of the University of
Edinburgh to the town -council, the professors are
relieved from all care of financial concerns, and of
lands and buildings. It might be supposed, ante-
cedently to experience, that such matters would
not be weU managed by bodies of literary men ;
and the experience of the other universities, as de-
veloped in the report, amply confirms the suppo-
sition. The council not only fills the vacant chairs,
and tlius preserves the university from the abuses
of a self-elected corporation, but it can at any
time institute any new professorship which it
thinks to be for the advantage of science and ge-
neral education ; nor can the existing professors
maintain any monopoly of teaching, or close their
society against the new member. The council has
the discretion to leave matters of discipline and
ordinary detail to the principal aud professors,
while by its superintending power it can effectually
check any such practices as self-governed corpora-
tions are apt to fall into, tending to the present
benefit of the individual members rather than to
the permanent benefit of the whole body. Such
an external governing body may extend its
■till further, and look not only to the permanent
advantage of the university, but to the wants and
I
J
172 ON TflK ORIGIN OF
interests of society at large: a comprdieiisive
view, which eyen if the members of an academic
bodj desired to take, their habits would probablj
render them miable to rise to a sufficient hei^
above dieir ordinary sphere of viuon.
Such are some of the manifest advantages of lodg-
ing the supreme power cf the university in a body
distinct from the academic senate; and much of
the utility and success of the University of Edin-
burgh may be fairly ascribed to this peculiari^ in
its constitution* But though the theory in its
general form is good, it is obvious that a town-
council is not the best governing body for a uni-
versity ; and one very great objection is, that the
government of the -university is very far from being
its chief care. At Edinburgh, moreover, too little
authority seems to be given to the academic body.
But if we were to imagine a university, in which
the ordinary discipline, and the details inseparable
from the business of education, should be entrusted
to the body of professors ; in which they should be
entitled to tender their advice upon the election to
vacant chairs, the institution of new professorships,
and other graver matters, but without a final
voice ; in which all financial business, and the su-
preme government of the university, and the ad-
ministration of its patronage, should be committed
to a body of gentlemen chosen expressly and solely
for that purpose, responsible for the due discharge
UNIVERSITIES. 173
of their functions, and bound to make an annual
report of their management; we should form the
idea of a well-balanced academic constitution, and
of such an university as would be likely to be an
effective instrument for the difiiision of education
and the advancement of science. This constitu^
tion is realized in the University of London.
THE END.
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